Trouble with a capital T
by dragonprincess1988
Summary: Jason runs into trouble, which in turns leads to Dick and Tim helping him, albeit reluctantly.
1. Chapter 1

The room was dark and cool. He couldn't see anything, but that might have had something to do with the fact he was face down on the cold hard cement floor. All he could feel was pain. All he could hear was the sound of a metal bat breaking bones…his bones. He wasn't even sure he remembered how he got here.

He could barely move…well, to be honest he wasn't sure how much he actually could move, because at the moment, he just didn't want to move. Moving meant stretching the few broken ribs he knew he had. Moving meant finding out where exactly all this blood was coming from, and how serious the injuries really were. Moving meant possibly injuring himself more, but lying still on the ground, quite possibly, meant death. Between the thought of death…of this death in particular, and the sound of whomever it was beating him laughing, his mind jumpstarted into a rant of enormous proportions. Suddenly he remembered exactly how this fight had started and how it had just been moments before that the other guy was down; and to say he was angry was an understatement.

_He's playing with me. I'm here fighting for my fucking life, and the bastard is playing with me. I'm giving it all I've got…fighting with everything I've ever been taught by both the streets and by the bat, and it's not enough. Not only is it not enough, it isn't even making him sweat. He's laughing at me, and taking joy in my struggle for life. He's playing with me like a cat with a mouse. I want nothing more than to shove that damn metal bat down his fucking throat, and see if he can laugh then. I didn't go through all the hell I did just to have it end this way. Well screw this. I have a rule. If you are going out take the bastard with the metal bat with you._

Jason kicked out randomly and felt his boot-clad foot connect with his assailant's kneecap. The man fell to the ground clutching his leg as Jason got to a standing position, and whipped away the blood that was dripping down into his eyes. "Who the hell are you?"

"No one," the man choked out a response as Jason hit him again.

Jason grabbed the man by his hair and dragged him over to a nearby wall. "You attacked me out of nowhere, brought me to this cold, dark, dank hell, and yet you take no pride in your work. It doesn't sound like your employer will be happy with you." Jason shook the man. "Now, who are you? Why did you attack me?"

"I am a man without a name or an employer." The man spoke calmly.

"Cute, but wrong answer." Jason smacked the man's head off the wall. "Look, we just met, so you probably don't know this, but I don't take cryptic messages well." He smashed the man's head off the wall once more to drive the point home.

The man began to laugh. "You and I are the same. Neither of us belongs where we are, and yet we refuse to return to where we should be."

Jason dropped the man. "Okay, I get it. You're crazy, and you were bored."

The man sat up. "I came to give you a message. There will come a time when neither of us will have the choice to stay."

"But we'll always have the choice to fight." Jason finished for the man. "You beat me half to death to deliver a message? You really are crazy. I'm allowing you to live, mainly because I'm tired, but if I see you again you won't be so lucky." Jason turned to leave, but stopped when the man began to speak again.

The man stood, and watched Jason carefully. "I had to get your attention, thick-headed one--and you may have a few broken bones, but you aren't actually that hurt. Are you?

Jason turned toward the man slightly. "I hurt like hell, thanks."

The man shrugged. "Sometimes pain is a necessity. It is a means to learning."

"Of course it is. I'm leaving." Jason turned to leave once again.

"The one known as Damian will be the undoing of all." The man watched Jason, expecting to see him tense, but Jason never was one for giving people what they expected.

Jason shrugged. "Probably, but Timmy's got a plan for that. The kid has a plan for everything."

The man smiled. "Ah, but so do you."

Jason continued to walk away. "The only plan I have involves a nice cold beer."

The man watched Jason leave. "For now, but soon you will learn."

The End (for now...I think)


	2. Chapter 2

Tim was in the middle of typing when Jason showed up. "What are you doing here?" He didn't even pause in what he was doing, or look up.

Jason stood a few feet away from him. He wasn't happy about being here, but it was a necessary evil. "When you have a problem, go to someone with a frighteningly large brain, but remember to make sure you can kick their ass, you know, just in case." Jason gave him a small joking smile.

"What do you want?" Tim wasn't in the mood to deal with Jason. He was tired, and had a lot of work to do--important work--important-not-involving Jason work.

Jason held his hands up in the air defensively. "Chill, and drop the whole Bat act. I'm one, too, remember? I want to talk to Timmy for this one."

Tim gave him a one shoulder shrug. "You get what you get. Deal with it."

Jason glared, but decided it wasn't worth starting a fight with him over. "Fine. I was attacked last night. I need to know by whom and why."

"Time?" Tim's voice was flat. He had better things to do, but if it got Jason out of here, then fine.

Jason couldn't help but think that caring, apparently, wasn't this Robin's thing. The kid just turned so cold so easily. "How the fuck should I know?"

Tim shrugged again. "Sorry, forgot you're not as good as some of us. Relative time?"

Jason growled. This was getting old. "If I didn't need you, I would kill you for that little jab."

Tim turned toward Jason in his chair. "You need me? Oh, well, in that case there should be plenty more where that came from."

Jason's temper was flaring, and his patience was running out. "Just do your weird little geek thing, and figure it out."

Tim turned back to the screen and continued typing. "I don't just pull information out of the cosmos. I kind of need at least something to go on."

"Fine." Jason took a deep breath, and then began to tell Tim everything he could think of about the night before.

Jason told Tim everything he could remember from the previous night's fight. When he finished, he expected the kid to be stunned, or to just continue working, or something, but instead, Tim just stared at him as a small smile crept onto his face. "Damian will be the undoing of all? Hmmm," Tim shrugged, "I honestly didn't think he was that important. Who knew?"

Jason rolled his eyes. When did this kid get into making jokes all of the time? "Yeah, yeah, funny, can we focus now?" That sentence left a nasty taste in Jason's mouth--usually he was the one annoying Tim, not the other way around.

Tim returned his gaze to the computer screen. "I don't see what the big deal is. It's obvious who the man was."

Jason raised an eyebrow. Now the kid was just being a bastard. "Oh? Is it? Then who, may I ask, was it?"

Tim looked at him, and his face was completely void of emotion. "The man who attacked you was clearly Nightwing in disguise."

Jason just stared at him with disbelief. He was going to kill Dick. "WHAT? Where is he? I'm going to kick his ass."

Tim smiled slightly. "Chill, J."

Jason was nearly in a full blown rage. "You want me to chill! He broke three ribs!"

Tim continued to smile that little 'I just won' smile. "It wasn't Nightwing. I just enjoy fucking with you."

Jason slapped him on the back of the head. "There's something wrong with you, you know that?"

Tim returned to what he had been doing again. "You said you wanted Timmy for this. That comes complete with practical jokes, watching your face turn that oh-so-special color of red, and screwing with your head every five seconds."

Jason continued to just stare at him, wanting to slap him again. "There's something seriously wrong with you. Where the hell is Dick?"

Tim continued typing something, and Jason found himself oddly curious about it. "Dick hasn't been around for two days. He's been dealing with…something."

Jason rolled his eyes, and took a deep breath. "Okay, I'm not even going to ask about that one, but would another smack upside the head help you?"

Tim turned, and shot him a nasty death glare. "You wanted Tim, right? Well, you got him, and Tim is dealing with the fact that he hasn't slept in four days. Plus, I've had 24 cups of coffee in the last 12 hours. Now, what do you want?

Jason slid the files Tim had laying on the desk onto the floor, and sat down on the desk. "Let's be honest here. The way you're acting has nothing to do with your lack of sleep, or your caffeine intake. You just don't like me."

Tim whipped the chair around to face him. "You're right, of course the way I'm acting has nothing to do with the fact that I have a life, and plenty of other work to do. Of course, I can drop everything for you, J. I just won't because I don't like you. Yeah, that's exactly it. I'm glad we got that out in the open, now, go away." Tim pulled himself back to the desk and returned to his work once again.

Jason folded his arms across his chest. "It's because I'm not Dick. That's why you don't like me."

Tim bent down to retrieve the files. "You're right. You're not Dick, but that's not why I don't like you." As he was picking up the files he glared up at Jason. "I don't like you because you're an ass."

Jason sighed. This was turning into an ordeal he didn't need. "Can I have Robin back now?"

Tim continued to glare as he leaned back in his chair. "Fine, you've got my attention for the next five seconds. Make it quick."

Jason shrugged. "What do you want from me? I've already told you everything I know."

Tim stood up, and began to pace in front of him. "So, you don't have any type of description of this guy. You don't have a name. You don't even have a motive. How the hell am I supposed to find this guy? What do you want from me, J? I really don't think anyone is that good."

Jason threw his hands up in the air in frustration. "So, what? I'm just supposed to accept that these things happen and go about my day?"

Tim rolled his eyes. "Ugh, you're supposed to use that thick head of yours. Go back to the place where you fought that guy. You said you knocked his head off the wall a few times, and knowing you that means you probably broke his nose, or something. Get a blood sample, or something. I can probably work from there."

Jason nodded once, and then left.

The End (for now)


	3. Chapter 3

Tim had just finished putting away all of the files he had been going over earlier. He swore the next time he saw Jason, he was going to kick him in those broken ribs. It had taken him nearly an hour to get all of the files back into the right folders, and then he still had to actually do the work involved with said files. Sleep was something Tim missed dearly, and it looked like tonight was going to be another all-nighter. He was currently in the middle of going over the reports he had done earlier, when he heard footsteps behind him--but he didn't turn around. It looked like he was going to be able to kick Jason sooner than he thought. "So, did you bring me some DNA or something that I can work with?"

Dick stopped walking for a moment, and tried to remember if he had forgotten to do something. "DNA? For what?"

Tim turned in his chair to face the person behind him, who was decidedly not Jason. "Oh, sorry, I thought you were…someone else."

Dick raised an eyebrow at him. "Someone else? How many people do you have bringing you DNA, Timmy?"

Tim shrugged as he began to rub his eyes tiredly. "Um…well, you know, there are a lot of us."

Dick stared at him. The kid looked far more exhausted than normal, but that didn't explain the way he was acting. "Tim, what's going on?"

Tim tensed the moment Dick's question made it to his ears. "Nothing," he took a deep breath, and forced himself to relax...at least a little. "Hey, did you get my email?"

"Yeah, it was cute." Dick folded his arms over his chest as he stared down at Tim. "Now, what am I missing?"

Tim glanced up at him like he had just thought of something, and then began to speak a lot like a speedster. "You're missing something? Really? What? I can help you try to find it. Well, unless it's a missing brain--you know--squishy--it's not my deal."

Dick walked over and stood next to him. "Funny, Tim, real funny." He smacked Tim on the back of the head as he spoke. "Now, there's something going on that you don't want to tell me, but we both know I'm just going to keep bugging you until you do, so what's going on?"

Tim sighed. He wasn't sure if he should be saying this, but Dick could get really annoying really fast when he wanted to. "I think Jason went crazy."

Dick rolled his eyes. "What? Again? Man, this is getting to be like a weekly occurrence around here. What did he do now?"

Tim shook his head as he reluctantly started to tell Dick everything Jason had told him about the night he was attacked. If things kept up the way they were going, Tim was certain he was never going to get any sleep ever again. Between dealing with Jason and filling Dick in it seemed all of his time was taken up with talking, or arguing, or being hit in the head by his 'brothers', which was definitely no better than the work he wasn't doing at the moment. He finished relaying all the information which Jason had given to him to Dick, and quietly waited for Dick's response.

Dick stared at Tim for a moment, trying to process everything he had been told. He decided to deal with the whole Damian bit much later, like maybe once his brain could function past the thought of, 'what the hell was going on as of late?'. "So…uh…did you ask Jason since when does he take that kind of crap? I mean, seriously, from the way it sounds, he could have easily kicked that guy's butt. He just decided not to."

Tim shrugged. Figuring out why and how his 'older brother' worked really wasn't on his agenda for today; at least he was pretty sure it hadn't been when his day had started. "He's Jason. Who knows why he does what he does? Come on, half the time, I don't even think he knows why he does what he does. I mean it's not like the guy ever has a plan, or anything."

Dick moved some of the papers that Tim had laying on the desk, and sat down on the desk much the same way that Jason had earlier, except this time there was no mess for Tim to clean up...thankfully. "Tsk, tsk. Now, now, that's not fair, Timmy. He's always has a plan. It just normally involves pissing off as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time, fighting with someone for no other reason than the fact that he can--and some kind of alcohol is thrown in there somewhere. Although, with all of the shit that he pulls, I don't know where he finds the down time for that."

Tim stared at him with a raised eyebrow. "Bitter much?"

Dick shrugged. "Oh, you know, only a little."

"My ass, only a little."

Dick and Tim both turned to see Jason sauntering toward the computer, but didn't say anything. "Here, you were right about the breaking his nose thing." Jason threw an evidence bag at Tim as he turned his attention to Dick. "So, I was told you were busy with something, Dick." Jason spat the name out with venom. "Want to share with us what that was?"

Dick jumped down from the desk. "I don't really think it's any of your business, Jason."

"Maybe I'm just curious like that." They were standing toe to toe, glaring at each other, and snarling.

Dick smirked. "If you were actually any good at detective work, you wouldn't be curious, now would you? No, instead you would have answers."

Tim stood up, and got between the two of them. "That's enough. If you two start anything else, I'm going to kick both of you out of the cave, and go back to the work I was doing before I was interrupted by the two of you. Do you hear me?"

They both nodded simultaneously. "Yes, Alfred…whatever you say, Alfred."

Tim glared at them, and then returned to the computer. "Jason, I'll let you know if I find anything."

Jason nodded once again, and then turned and glared at Dick. "See you later, brother." The last word was spoken as an insult, as Jason spun around and walked out.

Dick walked over and placed a hand on Tim's shoulder as he was typing. "Do yourself a favor and get some sleep."

Tim shrugged off the hand. "Sleep? Who needs sleep? Nah, I'm good."

Dick shook his head. "Tim, I'm serious. Get some sleep. It won't affect Jason's impatience any, and it might help your mood some."

Tim stared at him with a raised eyebrow. "My mood? You know what would help my mood? If you would stop arguing with Jason every time you see him."

Dick held his hands up in the air defensively. "Hey, he started it."

Tim glared at him. "Really mature, Dick, really mature."

Dick shrugged. "What can I say? I try."

Tim just stared at him blankly. "Uh huh."

Dick placed a hand on Tim's shoulder again, and gave him a tight squeeze. "I mean it. Get some sleep. It won't kill you, you know?"

Tim nodded once. "Yeah, in a minute, or so. I want to at least get the DNA Jason gave me into the system."

Dick released Tim's shoulder and turned to walk away. "Night."

Tim continued typing. "Night."

The End (for now)


	4. Chapter 4

Dick walked into the cave to see Tim exactly where he had left him the previous night. "Did you even go to sleep?"

"Yes." Tim didn't even look over his shoulder at him.

Dick raised an eyebrow. He doubted that…doubted it a lot. "Really?"

"Yes." Tim continued with what he was doing.

"When?" Dick was sure the kid was lying, and he was equally sure that part of the reason Tim wasn't looking at him was because he would be able to see many dark rings under the kid's eyes.

"After I had started the scan." He slid the chair to the right to grab something.

Dick thought Tim's reactions still looked a bit slow. "And how long were you asleep?"

"Long enough." Tim was starting to get annoyed with the questions, and his tone clearly reflected that.

Dick rolled his eyes. It was going to be another one of** those** days. "In hours, Tim, how long?"

Tim stopped what he was doing for a second to think. "Four. When the computer alerted me that the scan was done, I woke up."

Dick stared at him oddly. "Wait, you slept down here?"

This time Tim did turn to face him. "Yeah, why?"

Dick was right about the dark circles under Tim's eyes. The kid looked like he hadn't slept in a week. "Did you even lay down, or did you just lay your head on the desk and sleep?"

Tim glared at him, and it probably would have been more effective had it not been for how tired he looked. "What do you think?"

Dick leaned against the desk. "You know sleeping hunched over like that is bad for your back."

Tim rolled his eyes. He wasn't in the mood for another lecture. "You know, you could at least ask about the results--pretend to care, at least a little. I realize it's just Jason, but…"

Dick interrupted Tim before he could finish that rant. He didn't need to hear it all over again. "Okay, okay, I get it. Fine, what did you find?"

Tim started reading off some of the information he had managed to pull up on the screen. "The guy who attacked Jason is a metahuman named Daisuke Tanaka. He was born in Japan, and moved to America when he was five. He kept a pretty low profile. He spent most of his childhood in labs having tests done on him. Apparently, his parents were fascinated with his abilities, and wanted to learn as much as they could about them." Tim kept skimming through the papers he had in front of him, as well as the information he had pulled up on the screen. "That's about it. Like I said, he kept a low profile, at least that was until he died in…"

Dick cut him off once again. "Whoa, wait, hold up, died?"

Tim rolled his eyes. Dick needed to listen more. "Yeah, Dick, died. Come on, it wouldn't be the first time someone came back from the dead. I mean, cough, cough Jason cough, you know?"

Dick began to pace in front of him. "Yeah, it's just…doesn't anyone stay dead anymore?"

Tim shrugged. "Apparently not."

Dick stopped, and turned toward Tim. "So, did you contact Jason, yet?"

Tim nodded. "I called him, and I didn't get an answer. I left him a message, so I guess we'll see if he shows up, or whatever."

Dick spun around, and continued with his pacing. "Yeah, so back to this sleep thing."

Tim rolled his eyes again. This conversation was getting old. "I was going to put this stuff away, and then go get some sleep."

Dick walked over, and started gathering the papers together. "I can do that. You get to bed."

Tim stared at him for a moment. Dick seemed just a little too eager to clean up for him, but he was really tired. Tim shrugged, and began walking towards the stairs. "Sounds good to me, just wake me when Jason gets here; and preferably before you two start pummeling each other this time."

Dick continued piling the papers together. "It was one time, and we didn't hurt each other **that** badly. Now, you are watching over us like Alfred."

Tim yawned. "Yeah, well you two need to be watched."

Dick glared at Tim as he was climbing the stairs. "Night, Tim."

"Night." Tim walked out of the cave.

The moment he was gone, Dick sat down and began reading through everything. There was no reason he shouldn't be as knowledgeable as Tim as to what was going on.

The End (for now)


	5. Chapter 5

Jason walked into the cave to see Dick sitting in front of the computer instead of Tim

Jason walked into the cave to see Dick sitting in front of the computer instead of Tim. This was going to be interesting, he was sure of that. "Where's Tim? I got his message."

The moment Dick heard Jason's voice he tensed all over. "Asleep. Leave him there."

Jason rolled his eyes. He didn't need the attitude. "I've got a life, and shit to do. I can't just wait around for little Timmy to be done with his nap, and what's got you being all bat ass today, anyway?"

Dick sighed. Tim must have had the patience of a rock to deal with Jason. "This is the first he's slept for more than a few hours in days, possibly in weeks. Let the kid sleep."

Jason walked over to the desk and didn't even bother to move the files before sitting down. "We should all be used to sleep deprivation by now. If he's not then maybe he doesn't deserve to be a bat."

Dick tried to pull the papers out from under Jason, but only managed to get a few of them. "Nice Jason, now drop the whole Timmy thing. He's the one that got you the information you needed, and he needs his sleep."

Jason kicked Dick in the leg lightly...well, lightly by Jason's standards. "Aw, come on, Dick, you know I'm right. If he can't handle the lack of sleep that comes along with this life then he can't handle this life."

Dick rubbed his leg as he glared up at Jason. "You don't know what you're talking about."

Jason went to kick him again, but this time Dick grabbed his foot. "Nah, I know exactly what I'm talking about. He's good with computers, and being a freaky little geek, but he's not good at the rest of this life. I also know that part of the reason you're willing to fight me on this is your need to protect him, and another part is your need to argue with me. He doesn't belong, Dick, at least not the way we do."

Dick threw Jason's foot away from him as he got up and began to pace the length of the room. "The information you need is on that desk. Shut up, and read the damn paperwork. Don't come back here, don't bother me or Tim again with this, and don't involve either of us anymore than you already have. This is your problem, Jason, not ours." Dick began to walk away, but was halted by Jason's voice.

Jason jumped off the desk, a few papers slid to the floor as he did so. He walked over to where Dick stood, not facing him. "What do you think daddy Bat would do if I expressed my 'concern' for our younger brother, Dick?"

Dick spun around to face him. "I **know** he would tell you that Tim has earned his right to be Robin, at least more than you ever did."

Jason didn't even have time to register how angry he really was before his fist went flying toward Dick's face. Dick slid to the side, and was about to aim a kick right for Jason's still healing ribs when he heard something behind him that sounded distinctly like Alfred clearing his throat. They both stopped, and turned to see Tim standing at the foot of the stairs.

Tim had his arms folded over his chest, and was tapping his foot against the floor. "What are you two doing?" He stared at both of them with a very annoyed look.

"Nothing." The two of them spoke simultaneously.

Tim stepped closer to them. "Yeah, it didn't look like nothing. Dick, I told you to come and get me when he got here." Jason stuck his tongue out at Dick, and Dick was about to respond when Tim moved in between the two of them. "Jason, grow the fuck up. Bat training covered a lot of things, but unfortunately how to deal with two older brothers acting like immature morons wasn't in any of the lessons."

Jason scoffed. "That's because Bats never knew how to handle either one of us himself."

Dick stared at him with a raised eyebrow. "Oh? Speak for yourself, Jay."

Jason was about to say something, but Tim cut him off before he could even start. "I'm sorry, but am I the only person that thinks we should probably focus on Daisuke Tanaka?"

Dick and Jason both stared at Tim completely confused. "Who?" They both questioned in unison.

Tim shook his head at both of them in that annoyed manner that only Tim could pull off. "You know; the back from the dead metahuman running around attacking Jason."

Jason sighed. It wasn't like he couldn't handle his own problems. "It was only one attack, and what do you mean back from the dead metahuman?"

Tim glared at Dick for a moment. "You didn't tell him! So, you randomly started a fight with him, and then you didn't even bother to tell him what I found."

Dick held up his hands defensively. "I told him the information was on the desk. He's the one that didn't read it, and there was nothing random about that fight."

Jason rolled his eyes. He knew this was going to continue forever if he didn't stop them. "Hey, hello, I've got questions over here." Jason waved his hands in the air trying to get their attention.

Dick scowled at Tim. It was obvious Dick was still angry that he was being lectured at for not updating Jason on the information Tim had found even though Dick was pretty sure 'read the damn paperwork' was pretty self explanatory. Tim gave Dick one final, and intense, bat glare before turning toward Jason. "What do you want to know?"

Jason shrugged. "Well, let's start with the basics. "What are this metahuman's abilities?"

Tim walked over to the desk, and started riffling through the scattered papers on it. After a few moments he pulled a single sheet of paper out of the chaos. "As far as we know he has visions of the future, but I don't have much data on how specific those visions are. He can heal faster than your average human, but I don't know exactly how fast that is. He has enhanced speed, but not anywhere near a speedster's, or anything." Tim continued to skim through the information. "And that seems to be about as much information as I can get right now."

Jason stared at Tim for a moment looking bewildered. "So explain this back from the dead aspect."

Tim shrugged. "I don't really have a lot of information on that. You'd be surprised how many files aren't kept update once a person dies. You know, something about not expecting them to come back, or something, I'm sure. Really, who expects people to show up back from the dead on a regular basis?"

Dick and Jason held up their hands simultaneously. "You know we do." They looked at each other and laughed lightly.

Tim shook his head as he rolled his eyes. "I meant other than us."

Jason walked over and sat in front of the desk looking over all of the papers and files sitting in front of him. "So, what are we thinking? Lazarus pit?"

Tim followed Jason, and began picking up the papers on the floor. "There doesn't seem to be anything to indicate that."

"Magic?" Dick chimed in.

Tim gave the papers to Jason as he shook his head no to Dick. "I don't think so, but I'm still in the process of trying to contact Jason Blood and Zantanna. If anyone would know anything on the magic front I would assume it would be them."

Jason sighed again as he leaned back in the chair he was sitting in. "So, what are we left with?"

Tim shrugged. "No idea, like I said I really don't have anything on this."

Jason slumped further back in his chair. "I'm thinking this is one of those track the guy down and have a 'talk' with him things."

Tim nodded. "Yeah, probably."

Jason started to gather the different files and papers Tim had collected for him. He felt a bit odd. He should probably thank the kid. It looked like he had spent a lot of time accumulating the information for him, but that just wasn't his style. Jason glanced at the clock on the computer monitor as he was picking stuff up. "I've gotta go. You know shit to do, places to be, and all that." He took about a third of the papers on the desk and was gone before either one of them could say anything.

The End (for now)


	6. Chapter 6

Jason grabbed a beer and collapsed onto his couch as soon as he got home. He had spent most of the night trying to find some kind of lead on Daisuke Tanaka. Unfortunately, the guy was good at keeping a low profile, just as he had before his death...before he came back to life--however the hell he had managed that trick. Jason stopped for a moment and just stared at his beer. He didn't think he'd ever get used to the dying and randomly coming back again aspect of their lives, even if he had been one of those anomalies; that's what Tim had called it--had called him--when he hadn't known Jason was listening.

It's not like it wasn't true. It's not as though he had been like 'normal' people when he was alive the first time around. It's not as though he was like Dick…or Tim, for that matter, even before he had been killed. It's just that, having it said in that manner--to be reduced to nothing more than an anomaly was dehumanizing. It made him feel as though, suddenly, he was just another file on a desk in front of Tim, or a test that had yet to be run, or an experiment waiting to be studied. He didn't feel real. He didn't feel like a person. He simply felt like a thing…an object waiting to be inspected and passed off to the next person.

Jason took another swig from his beer. He had every intention of getting drunk and passing out on his couch. He was about to turn on the TV in front of him, when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He grabbed one of the throwing knives he had hidden nearby, and waited for more movement. He heard the rustle of fabric, and knew immediately that whoever it was that had just invaded his living room was not wearing Kevlar. He listened as the intruder moved about the place, and smiled. The person was wearing cotton, which was great for moving around comfortably--the fabric breathes well and moves well with a person--but it doesn't hold up well against knives…or well, anything for that matter.

Jason continued drinking his beer, and waited. Whoever it was certainly wasn't a bat, and the fact he or she hadn't attacked yet made Jason want to play with them for a bit. He began to toss the knife in his hand--low at first, and then gradually higher. He got off the couch and paced in front of it, still tossing the knife in his hand while he drank his beer. The other person had stopped to watch him. All of a sudden, Jason turned, and threw the knife directly into the corner of the room. He grabbed another knife from under the couch cushion and began tossing it like the previous one as he paced the length of the room.

He heard the swish of fabric again, and watched as the intruder moved to where he had thrown the first knife. Jason waited a few moments, still flipping the knife in his hand, and then threw it directly at his uninvited visitor. He waited for the sound of a body dropping to the floor, but heard nothing. Jason wasn't worried. It wasn't like he didn't have enough weapons around or anything, but few people could have caught that knife. He was sure of that. "What do you want?" He spoke as he put his beer down, and slowly inched toward his other hidden weapons on the other side of the couch.

His unwanted guest laughed, and Jason knew that laugh immediately. It was the same one he had heard the night he was attacked. "What do I want?" The man leaned against the wall, and juggled the two throwing knives. "You came looking for me, did you not? That's what I've heard--that you've been asking around for me; so I decided to be nice and pay you a visit."

"You!" Jason growled. "I'm going to kill you!" Jason had grabbed his Kamas, and jumped over the couch to meet the man.

Daisuke shrugged. "I've been dead once before. I found it rather boring, didn't you?"

Jason shook his head. "I've been waiting for this rematch ever since that night, and now nothing else matters."

Daisuke laughed once again, and continued to juggle Jason's knives. "Rematch? I thought we were just having fun. I mean, you couldn't have actually wanted to hurt me with these." Daisuke threw the knives to the floor. "You made your throws so flashy. You might as well have painted your knives bright orange. It would have been more subtle."

Who the hell did this man think he was? Jason snarled, but didn't attack. He didn't need this crap; and if it wasn't for the fact that the crazy meta seemed to enjoy games, he would have gutted this man already. But despite popular disbelief Jason did, in fact, learn from his mistakes; so he stayed where he was and waited for the other man to make a move.

Daisuke took a step forward. "So, what do you want?"

Jason didn't move. "I want to know how you came back from the dead. I want to know what the hell is going on around here, and I want to kill you."

Daisuke shook his head. "You aren't very bright, are you? None of that matters. How or why I came back doesn't matter. What matters is why I came to you. I came to you because you were the one separated from the rest of your family. I came to you because you were the hardest one to find, and the easiest one to bring back to them."

"They are not my family; and I still want to know how you came back." Jason interrupted him before he could even start with that rant.

Daisuke stepped closer and took Jason's Kamas from his hands and threw them to the ground. "It doesn't matter. You shouldn't have wasted your time trying to find me. You should be dealing with the Damian threat."

Jason was starting to lose his patience with this man. Had he been anyone else, Jason would have knocked him out for merely touching his weapons, but he knew Daisuke was well trained in different forms of marital arts, and with his enhanced speed, Jason wasn't sure he could take him on. "I don't need to worry about that, Robin's got it covered."

Daisuke smacked him on the side of his head before Jason could even attempt to block it. "True, Tim Drake is a bright child; but he will not be able to deal with this threat alone. It will take each and every one of you to deal with this matter."

Jason rubbed his head. "Wait, does that mean I'm going to have to see, speak, and deal with Batman?"

Daisuke nodded. "Yes, and work along side him."

Jason shrugged. "Well, then, I guess we're all fucked."

Daisuke glared at him. "I realize you are not a terribly bright person, but you must put aside your own issues to…"

"To what? Help Batman? No thanks." Jason interrupted him again.

Daisuke sighed; getting through to Jason was far more difficult than he had first thought it would be. "It is not just your family you will be helping, surely you know this."

Jason nodded. "I know, but you're making a mistake."

Daisuke stared at him with a raised eyebrow. "Oh? Am I?"

"Yeah, you seem to think I care." Jason walked back over to his couch, sat down, and picked up his half-finished beer.

Daisuke walked around the couch to stand in front of him. "You are telling me you don't care, but I know you really do."

Jason turned on the TV, and began to flip through the channels. "Reverse psychology really doesn't work on me…just ask daddy Bats."

Daisuke sat down on the floor, and stared up at Jason with a raised eyebrow. "Are you saying you truly care about no one?"

Jason took another sip from his beer. "I'm saying I've got better things to do."

Daisuke smiled gently. "You know that when I leave here you are going to return to them to tell them what happened."

Jason shrugged, and continued channel surfing. "What's your point?"

Daisuke stood again. "Nothing. Just do yourself a favor, and allow the other two to knock some sense into that thick head of yours. Tell them to aim for the ribs. I mean it's not like you block, or anything anyway." Before Jason could even respond Daisuke left.

The End (till next time)


	7. Chapter 7

Jason walked into the cave, completely drenched. It had been raining pretty hard for what seemed like the entire day. He stopped moving when he heard the sound of glass hitting metal, and what sounded like a struggle. He guessed Dick and Tim were fighting again. "What's going on?"

"Ow! Watch what you're doing. I'd like to still have an arm after this." Tim glared at Dick.

Dick rolled his eyes. "Well, how about you make this just a bit easier, and stop moving."

Tim winced as Dick moved his arm closer to him. "Well, excuse me for breathing. What do you want me to do hold my breath?"

"Actually, if you wouldn't mind…" Dick stopped talking the moment he noticed the death glared Tim had shot him.

Jason saw Dick removing glass from Tim's arm, and it wasn't a pretty sight. "What happened?"

Dick placed a shard of glass into a metal pan he had sitting next to him. "Tim forgot how to drive."

"I did not forget how to drive." Tim growled at Dick. "I'm telling you, the bike stopped on its own."

Dick nearly laughed. "Yeah, funny thing about that Tim--when you hit the brakes, the bike stops."

Tim snarled. "That's not what happened."

Jason grabbed some more supplies to help Dick clean up Tim. "So, what did happen, then?"

Tim sighed. This had to be the fifth time he went over this for someone. "I was driving…"

"Speeding," Dick cut in.

"Yeah, of course I was speeding. I was chasing some guy." Tim glared at Dick again before returning his attention to Jason "Anyway, I was going at top speed, and yeah, it was a bit hard to see because of the rain, but nothing I couldn't handle. So, I was heading down this street, and the guy decided to make this crazy ass u-turn…nothing I couldn't follow, but, you know, still crazy. Anyway, so I go to turn, and halfway through the turn, the bike just stopped." Tim glowered at Dick before he could say anything. "I didn't do anything. It just stopped, and there went my ass through a plate glass window."

Jason looked him over quickly. "Hmm, seems like it was more you side than your ass there, kid."

Tim flinched as Dick removed another piece of glass. "Yeah, it was going to be head first through the nice window of pain, but I managed to twist in the air."

Dick patted him on the back lightly. "Good job. I'm glad you remembered to do that since, you couldn't remember how to drive."

Tim scowled at Dick. "I know how to drive, thanks."

Dick shook his head. "Bikes don't just stop randomly, Timmy."

Jason rolled his eyes. He had a reason to be here, and this definitely wasn't it, but he guessed he did owe the kid at least a little for all of the help he had given him lately. "Okay, when's the last time you used your bike before this?"

Tim stared at him for a moment. It was odd to see Jason being the voice of reason. "Last night."

Jason sat down next to Tim. "Do you do regular maintenance on it?"

Tim nodded. "Yeah, of course."

Jason watched as Dick started cleaning the cut on the side of Tim's head--one that he hadn't noticed was there. "Anything suspicious, or any problems with it, as of late?"

Tim mentally scanned through everything he had done in the past week or so involving the bike. "No, nothing out of the ordinary."

Jason was running out of ideas here. It was starting to look like the kid really had just screwed up, but Jason knew that didn't happen often. "Is there any way someone could have tampered with it?"

Tim shrugged, but only with the unharmed arm. "Um, not that I know of. The only ones who have really been around it are…" Tim stopped mid-sentence.

Jason shook him lightly. He didn't want to move Tim too much. "What's wrong? Did Dick hurt your arm again?"

Tim shook his head as if to clear it. "No, sorry. I was just thinking."

"About?" Dick and Jason asked simultaneously.

Tim shrugged again. "It's probably nothing, and I'm most likely just being paranoid, but Damian was hanging around my bike before I left tonight."

Dick stopped cleaning Tim's wounds for a moment. "So, you think Damian might have tampered with your bike?"

Tim was about to tell them he had no idea, but he wouldn't put it past Damian to do something like that, but before Tim could say anything Jason cut him off. "I guess now would be a good time to tell you two why I'm here."

Dick and Tim both turned their attention to Jason. "Oh? Why's that?" They both spoke at once.

Jason got up, and began to pace. He felt like he needed to be doing something during this conversation. "Daisuke Tanaka paid me a visit last night."

"What happened?" Again the two of them spoke in unison.

Jason shrugged. "You know…stuff, but he was really pissed off that I 'wasted my time trying to find him instead of dealing with the Damian threat.' His words not mine."

Tim waited impatiently for Dick to wrap his arm. "Odd…did he tell you why Damian is such a big threat? What is he going to do that's so horrible, or better yet, did he tell you how we're supposed to stop him?"

Jason sighed. "I don't know. It's not like we sat down to have tea and a long discussion about this. He didn't really say much--just that it would take all of us, and some other stuff."

"Other stuff? Like what?" Dick and Tim spoke at the same time again.

"Nothing." Jason wasn't willing to go into all of that family crap. It wasn't true, and they didn't need him just like he didn't need them.

"You know anything could be considered important, even the smallest detail," Dick spoke as he finally finished wrapping Tim's arm.

"Yeah, I know I was trained by the Bat, too." Jason couldn't keep the contempt from his voice. It seemed like when he talked to Dick, that was all that ever came out. "Speaking of which, where is he? I haven't seen him around…not that I would want to, or anything."

Dick and Tim stared at each other apprehensively for a moment, and then Dick motioned for Tim to tell Jason. "He's been spending a lot of time with Damian lately. We didn't think anything of it, because we were so busy helping you."

Jason nodded. "So, no daddy Bats on this one. Got it."

"But didn't Daisuke say it had to be all of us?" Tim almost looked worried…well, as close to looking worried as Tim ever got, that is.

Jason stared at him, almost shocked at Tim's reaction. "I realize I haven't exactly been around recently, but when did we start listening to crazy evil metas?"

Dick put an arm around Tim. "I'd hate to admit it, Timmy, but Jason's got a point. I mean we don't even really know anything about Daisuke. We have no clue whose side he's on."

Tim pulled away from Dick. "Um, hello, bike--crash--Damian--do these words mean anything to anyone else besides the guy who got his arm shredded?"

Dick tried to hug him again, but Tim wouldn't let him. "Tim, it's not like you have any proof that Damian messed with your bike."

Tim glared at Dick viciously. "So, you still think I can't drive? You still think I'm not good enough? You agree with Jason that I don't belong?" Tim saw the look Jason had given him, and continued. "Yeah, I heard the two of you arguing. Funny thing about that--I have ears, and you two are really fucking loud, you know that? You still don't think I'm worth listening to, or anything for that matter, well fine. I don't need this crap." Tim got up, but nearly fell over. When Dick moved to help him, Tim pushed him away. "I'm fine." He steadied himself, and then walked out of the cave.

Jason stared at Dick a little lost. "Um, I'm sort of, kind of, maybe just a little bit new to this whole 'older brother' gig. What do we do now?"

Dick gave Jason the same look right back. "I don't know. Normally I would say go apologize, but I think he would throw an explosive batarang at us without a second thought right now."

Jason sat down again. This was confusing, and not the way he had expected this visit to go at all. "So, give him time to cool off, and then go talk to him?"

Dick shrugged. "Yeah, I guess that's best. So, tell me everything about your little encounter with Daisuke, and then we'll take apart what's left of Tim's bike, and at least try to figure this out."

Jason sighed. This was going to turn out to be a longer visit than intended, and an even longer night.

The End (for some undisclosed time period)


	8. Chapter 8

Jason watched as Dick walked on his hands back and forth in front of him. "You go." Jason was sitting on one of the work tables in the cave, tossing one of his throwing knives in the air as he spoke.

Dick flipped into a standing position, shook his head, and then continued pacing on his feet. "No, you go."

Jason put the knife down next to him on the table as he jumped down to the floor. "I'm not going. Besides you upset him."

Dick stopped pacing, and turned to face Jason. "Me? You're the one who said he wasn't good enough to be Robin."

Jason nodded. "True, but you're the one who wouldn't listen to his theories on the other brat."

Dick sighed as he began to rub his temples. "Okay, okay, let's be honest here. We both upset him."

"Right," Jason suddenly began to smirk, "but you upset him more."

Dick glared at him. "Jason!"

"What?" Jason shrugged, and gave Dick a not so innocent look. "It's expected for me to be an ass, but you? You're the golden boy who he's looked up to since…forever. I doubt that kid gives a damn about my opinion, but can you say the same thing?"

Dick sighed, and hung his head. Jason was right, but that didn't mean he had to admit it. "We're both going, and that's final."

Jason crossed his arms over his chest. "You can't make me."

Dick stared at him with a raised an eyebrow. "Wanna bet?"

Jason smirked as he unfolded his arms, and moved into a fighting stance. "First thing that goes is your reflexes."

Dick followed suit, and kept his face straight even though he was genuinely confused by Jason's previous statement. "What?"

Jason's smirk grew into a full-on grin. "Look, I'm not insulting you…just your reflexes…oh, and your age."

Dick glared at him again. "I'm not that old."

Jason was still smiling when he threw the first punch. "I was going to blame your stupidity on your age, but I guess if you prefer just being stupid that works for me too."

Dick rolled his eyes as he blocked the fist coming towards his head. "Jason!"

Jason aimed a kick at Dick's side. "Okay, let's put it this way. That kid freaks me out. I'm not going up there."

"It's just Tim." Dick blocked the kick as he managed to clip Jason in the arm with the side of his foot.

"Yeah, Tim the freak." Jason back-flipped away, and then winced at the pain in his ribs.

Dick smirked, and waited for Jason to decide his next move. "He's been checked out thoroughly. He's not a meta, if that's what you're worried about."

"No, see that's what makes it worse." Jason pulled out another one of his knives, and tossed it in Dick's direction. "He's not a meta, so he has nothing to blame for his…freakiness."

Dick lazily dodged the knife. "Freakiness? Really now, is that necessary?"

Jason watched with a bored expression as Dick showed off with his usual performance of intricate acrobatic moves. "Yes."

Dick finished, and turned to glare at him. "Jason!"

"Look you're the nice big brother, and I'm not, so you go fix him." Jason waved him towards the stairs.

Dick continued glaring at Jason as he folded his arms over his chest. "Jason!"

Jason stared at him defiantly. "I'm not going."

Dick intensified his glare, and raised his voice. "Jason!"

Jason sat back down on the table he had previously been sitting on. "You know, no matter how loudly you say my name, I'm not going."

Dick gave Jason a death glare as he growled out his name. "JASON!"

Jason sighed and rolled his eyes as he slid off the table. "Okay, okay, lead the way to the geek." When he saw the look that Dick gave him, he smirked again. "What? He's an all purpose freak geek mix."

Dick began to massage his temples again. "How about this? You remain silent for the duration of your stay here."

Jason rolled his eyes again as he groaned. "You take all the fun out of everything, you know that?"

Dick glared at him once again. "Jason!"

Jason was about to say something, but was cut off by another voice. "Do you two even know the meaning of stealth?" The two of them turned to see Tim standing at the bottom of the steps. "I could hear you all the way upstairs."

Jason leered as he shrugged. "I prefer diversions for a reason."

Dick shot him a look. "Because you don't know how to shut up?"

"Oh look who's talking." Jason sneered.

Dick smiled sweetly. "Look, I'm just saying you have a big mouth."

Jason's eyes narrowed. He was getting ready to hit Dick…HARD. "Yeah, well, at least I know how to sit still."

"ENOUGH! Both of you." The two of them fell silent instantly as they whirled around to face Tim.

Dick patted him on his uninjured shoulder. "Wow, I'm impressed, Tim. That even sounded like Bruce. You're getting really good at that."

Tim stared past Dick and Jason with wide eyes. "Um, that wasn't me."

All three turned to see Bruce glaring at them.

"Shit. Well, see you two later. I'm out." Jason turned to leave, but both Dick and Tim grabbed his shirt and pulled him back.

Dick pushed Jason in front of him. "Nah, Jay, I think you should stay for awhile."

Jason glared at Dick. "I hate you."

Dick grinned pleasantly. "I know."

Bruce quickly scanned each of them before his gaze fell on Jason. "Why is here?"

All three of them glanced at each other for a moment before Dick finally spoke. "Tim and I have been helping him with…er…something lately."

Bruce gave a small nod, and then turned his attention to Tim. "Arm…what happened?"

Tim internally sighed. He didn't think the intense Bat mode was necessary, but it wasn't like he expected much else either. "Crashed into a store front due to weather conditions."

"Change the bandages." Bruce grunted, glared at each of them, and then turned to leave. "Don't leave the cave a mess. Alfred's not your mother." He growled over his shoulder as he walked out.

Jason waited until he was sure Bruce was gone before turning back to Dick, and punching him in the arm as hard as he could. "Well, thanks for that. Actually that was moderately pleasant…well, as pleasant as an unexpected visit with the Bat can be anyway."

"Yeah, whatever, can we get back to work now?" Tim walked over to the desk and began pulling up files on the screen.

Dick glanced at Jason for a moment before turning his attention back to Tim. "Um, shouldn't you be resting?"

Tim started typing, but only used the uninjured arm. "I'm fine."

Dick started moving towards Tim, but noticed Jason wasn't following. He motioned for Jason to come along, and glared when Jason shook his head no. One silent conversation, with Jason frequently shaking his head no, and Dick glaring at him and motioning him forward, resulted in Dick dragging Jason along with him towards Tim.

Jason hung his head and sighed as he allowed Dick to pull him--far more forcefully than necessary--forward. "This is a bad idea."

Dick ignored Jason as he placed a hand on Tim's unharmed shoulder. "I really think it'd be better for you to rest awhile."

Tim shrugged off the hand, and continued typing one-handed. "Yeah, well I can't trust the two of you alone, and I feel fine."

Jason rolled his eyes as he tried to pull his arm free from Dick's grasp. "Well, that was a Bat answer if ever I've heard one."

Dick released Jason's arm and elbowed him in his not-so-healed ribs. Dick focused his gaze on Tim as Jason doubled over in pain and clutched his side "Look, I know we still have a lot of unanswered questions, but you need to heal. Not to mention, we should probably change those bandages."

Jason made a noise at that, but both Dick and Tim ignored him. "We can change them later. Besides what's the point if Damian is trying to kill us all anyway?" Before either one of the other two could say anything Tim slid his chair to the side, and pointed to the screen. "This is the video feed from right before I took my bike out. Do you still think I'm crazy, Dick?"

Jason took a deep breath, and then stood up straight to look at the screen. After watching it for a few minutes he turned to Dick, and gave him a well deserved death glare. "First off, OUCH! And second, it looks like the kid was right. The other brat clearly fucked with his bike."

Dick rolled his eyes at Jason. "Is that necessary?"

Jason shrugged, and then rubbed his sore ribs. "What?"

Dick gave him a look that suggested that it should be obvious what he meant. "Your language."

Jason smirked. "No, but it annoys you, so I see no reason to stop."

Tim sighed as he began to massage his temples. "Before you two start again, how about we focus on our current problem?" Tim pulled himself back to the desk so he could return to what he was doing on the computer.

Jason smiled as he nudged Dick. "Bet you Damian is actually a…"

"Interdimensional demon?" Tim answered for him.

Both Dick and Jason turned and stared at him. "What?" They both spoke simultaneously.

Tim spun his chair around to face them. "I might have sort of kind of just a little knocked Damian out and stole a blood sample from him. Turns out we are dealing with an interdimensional demon, but it's not like it's the first time any of us have dealt with that or anything. I'm checking to see if his 'kind' is already in our database. If it is that might help us figure out how to deal with the…problem."

Jason stared at the back of Tim's head for a moment, and then turned to Dick. "He knocked out an interdimensional demon?" Jason pointed at Tim. "He scares me."

Dick smirked. "As well he should."

Tim turned to glare at them. "I'm sitting right here."

The other two both shrugged. "We know." They spoke in unison.

Tim sighed and turned back to the screen. "You're both idiots. I'm going back to dealing with our demon problem."

Jason leaned against the desk as Tim returned to his work. "You know, aliens, interdimensional demons, people who can apparently come back from the dead…we lead a charmed life."

Dick laughed. "Charmed? Yeah, I'm sure that's the word for it, Jay."

Jason shrugged again. "Could be worse?"

Tim leaned back in his chair. "Yeah, we could all be stuck dealing with each other for some undisclosed time period…oh wait."

At the exact same time they both hit Tim in head. "Just let us know when you know more, okay?" Dick added before walking over to the other side of the desk.

Tim rubbed the back of his head as he glared at them. "Because I so need to be told to do that, and all."

Dick rolled his eyes as he turned his attention to Jason. "So, Alfred 'requests' that you stay for dinner, but you know it's more of an order than anything else."

Jason shook his head. "Nah, you know Alfred doesn't have to order. I mean other than Bruce, who is really going to refuse him? And even then sometimes Bruce can't get away from that 'eh hem' look he gives as he does that indignant little cough thing."

Dick grinned. "You know Alfie."

Jason chuckled lightly. "You know, I'm surprised he doesn't backhand you when you call him that."

Dick gave him an 'oh, come on' look as he nudged Jason. "You know that Alfred wouldn't backhand anyone."

Jason shrugged. "Yeah, but you gotta admit the mental image is pretty damn funny." The two of them began to laugh as they thought of it.

Tim gripped the edge of the desk as tightly as he could, and tried not to yell. "Do you two chatterboxes mind going upstairs? Some of us are actually trying to get some work done here."

"Yeah, yeah, we're going." Dick threw over his shoulder as they started walking away.

Jason leaned over to Dick. "I think we should come back down with a bucket of ice cold water and throw it on him."

Dick nodded. "Yeah, and then proceed to run like hell."

Jason smiled. "Why of course."

"You know I can still hear you two, right?" Tim watched the two of them as they ran up the stairs, laughing the whole way, and then he turned back to the computer screen and sighed. "Will they ever grow up?"

The End (for now)


	9. Chapter 9

There he laid, broken and bloody; his costume was torn to shreds. Dick wasn't sure what had happened, and at that moment he didn't really care--because Tim was breathing--and that, right now, was good enough for Dick. He didn't want to move Tim for fear of injuring him more, but he had to move him, and soon. The alley was filthy, and the sun was coming up. Soon there wouldn't be enough shadows to hide in. Carefully, Dick gathered Tim up, and he wasn't sure if he should feel bad about Tim's groan or be relieved that Tim was aware enough to groan. "It'll be okay." Dick wasn't sure if he was saying that for his own sake or for Tim's.

Tim was completely out by the time they got back to the cave. Dick was only focusing on getting back as quickly as possible, but he was pretty sure the kid had slipped into unconsciousness about halfway there. As Dick laid Tim down, he took a moment to really look Tim over. "Geezz little brother, what happened to you?" Dick began to remove the remnants of Tim's costume. Each time he removed a piece of Tim's suit Dick was just confronted by more bruises, more blood, more dirt, and more grime. "I should have been with you." Dick whispered to the unconscious body that laid before him.

Dick started cleaning Tim off carefully and was relieved to see that not all of the blood was Tim's, but more than Dick would have preferred was. Whoever Tim had been fighting had known most, if not all, of the weak points of Tim's costume, which was unsettling to say the least. It took hours to get Tim cleaned and bandaged completely. Most of the worst lacerations were on his sides, face, neck, and back. Dick knew that meant something, but he was just too exhausted to think it through right now. The kid had three broken ribs--two on the right, one on the left; the left shoulder was dislocated; two broken fingers on the right hand; both of his wrist were bruised and swollen, and had only just recently stopped bleeding; and from the look of Tim's ankles, he had been hung upside-down by his feet for quite awhile.

Six hours…that was how long he had spent looking for Tim, only to find him in a dirty alleyway looking like he had been through one hell of a night. Dick still had no idea what had happened, nor did he know who was responsible for the current condition of his little brother. He sat down in a chair next to Tim, and just watched the steady rise and fall of Tim's chest. There was nothing else he could do right now. Slowly, Dick drifted off to sleep.

Jason walked into the cave feeling a little uneasy. His last couple of visits here had been…awkward, and even though the last time he was here, he and Dick had actually gotten along, Jason knew better than to hope for another relatively pleasant encounter this time. "I need to talk to…" Jason trailed off when he saw Tim. "What happened to him?"

Dick didn't answer. He just stared blankly in front of him. His eyes were completely unfocused. "Earth to Dick...hello…" Jason waved his hand in front of Dick's face. "If I have to shock you I will, and you know I'll enjoy it."

Dick grabbed Jason's arm as he blinked a few times. "What are you doing here?"

Jason pulled his arm out of Dick's grasp. "Welcome back to the land of the living. What happened to the kid?" Jason tossed a glance in Tim's direction.

"I…I don't know." Dick ruefully shook his head. "We were on patrol. His arm had just finished healing...well, mostly anyway. This was his first night back out there since the bike incident. He promised me he'd be fine on his own. I should have…I should have stayed with him…or followed him…or something."

Jason just stood there frozen for a second. He didn't know what to do--or what to say for that matter. This wasn't his area of expertise. He felt like a fish out of water. Hell, most of the time he expected Dick to be the one to be emotionally supportive and stuff. "Um, I'm sure it's not your fault. He's Robin…I'm sure he thought he could handle it…and…and…"

Dick shook his head again. "And you really suck at this, you know?"

Jason held his hands up in the air defensively. "Hey, that's you're deal, not mine. I only came here to talk to the vegetable."

Dick gave him one of his better bat glares. "He's not a vegetable."

Jason took an involuntary step back. Dick looked like he really wanted to hit something and Jason preferred that that something not be him. "Okay, fine…the kid who clearly got his assed kicked by…"

"Someone who knew everything about him." Dick finished for him.

"Huh?" Jason replied, truly confused.

Dick stared past Jason to gaze at Tim, who was still lying unconscious behind Jason. "Whoever it was knew all of the weak points of his suit."

Jason took a minute to process that information, and just watched Dick as he watched Tim. "Wait, what are we thinking here?"

"Well, we already know Damian messed with his bike. Is it so hard to believe that he did this too?" Dick gestured widely to Tim.

Jason started to walk around Tim just so he wouldn't have to see that look on Dick's face. He knew that look all to well. The idiot was blaming himself for whatever the kid had managed to get himself into that night, and if Jason was a different type of person, he'd tell Dick to stop it, but well…that just wasn't his style. "I don't know…fucking with the kid's bike is a long way away from…this."

Dick started to pace the length of the room; sitting wasn't helping his thought process any. "Is it? Tim could have been turned into a smear on the pavement had…"

"Had he not been Robin." Jason interrupted him.

"Had he not been in the middle of a turn." Dick viciously glared back at Jason. He wasn't sure why Jason was so keen on defending Damian, but it was really starting to irk him.

Jason threw his hands up in the air out of frustration. Dick was always so willing to jump to the first conclusion about everything and everyone. It's not like Tim had told them how the computer had just randomly come up with the answer that Damian was some crazy interdimensional demon, and Jason was not one for taking people…especially a Bat, at their word. "Okay, fine, so if the other brat was trying to kill Tim, why didn't he just finish him off? I mean, unless you gave him something, it doesn't look like the kid could have fought back much in this state."

Dick shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he was just too pathetic."

Jason rolled his eyes as he sighed. "Or maybe something else is going on."

Dick quickly turned to glare at Jason again. "Like what?"

Jason simply glared back as he folded his arms over his chest. "Oh, I don't know…maybe the crazy meta wants us to believe it's Damian."

Dick smirked at him like he had just figured out something about Jason that was truly damaging. "You're just bitter because he kicked your ass…twice; and were you not here for the interdimensional demon bit?"

Jason's glare intensified. "I am not bitter, he didn't kick my ass twice, and just because the kid said he did a blood test, that doesn't mean anything."

Dick rolled his eyes. "You are sooo bitter, he should have kicked you in the head some more, and have you ever done any lab work? Really? Human blood is made up of plasma, red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Demon blood has a little something extra thrown in. A child would know the difference."

Jason's glare deepened again. "Fine, so we've proved he's a demon. Where does the interdimensional part come in?"

Dick thought about that for a second before he shrugged. "Well, I guess that's all Tim's..." Dick let his voice trail off. He wasn't sure how to finish that statement.

Jason suddenly started to grin. "Freak geek mixture coming into play?" He suggested to Dick with an evil smirk.

Dick folded his arms over his chest as he glared back at Jason. "Shut up, and why are you so willing to defend demon breath anyway?"

Jason shook his head. "I'm not; I just happen to be the only one thinking of other possibilities here."

"Really?" Dick stared at him with mock shock. "Because I don't think you know how to use that thick head of yours to do anything besides piss people off."

"Yeah, well I don't need my head to kick your ass, Dick." The last word was spoken as an insult as Jason moved into a fighting stance.

Dick moved into a defensive position, and was about to say something before he was interrupted by another voice. "Shut up both of you." It was more of a cough than anything else, but the words still came out with a callous edge to them.

They both turned to see Tim trying to sit up. "Hey, how are you feeling?" Dick put his hands on Tim's shoulders and gently pushed him back down.

"Like I got my ass kicked. Now let me go." Tim swatted Dick's hands away with a visible wince.

"You have some broken ribs and that shoulder is going to hurt for awhile. You should rest," Dick spoke as he gently but firmly tried to push Tim back down.

"Did you pop it back into place?" Tim's voice was flat and his face was completely devoid of emotion.

Dick just stared at him blinking for a few moments. He wasn't expecting that question. "Yeah."

Tim glanced down at his hand. "And you clearly set the broken fingers."

Dick was still just staring at him and blinking. He felt like his brain was on a delayed reaction or something. He just wasn't following wherever Tim was leading this conversation. "Yeah, where are you going with this?"

"My point is if you did that and bandaged everything else, then I'm fine. I can deal with sore and the rest of it will heal eventually." Tim continued trying to sit up.

Dick pushed Tim down again. "I really think you should stay here and rest."

Tim glared at him. "I'm fine." It came out as more of a growl than anything else.

Dick knew that if he kept holding Tim down as he struggled he'd eventually just end up hurting Tim more, so he relented on his hold. "You are not fine."

Tim rubbed his shoulder as he sat up. "I will be."

Jason had moved to the chair that Dick had been previously sitting in. He took out one of his knives and started cleaning it. "Maybe you should listen to him, kid."

Dick stared at him for a moment dryly. "Better watch it there, Jay. Someone might actually think you're concerned or something."

Jason glanced up from his knife. "Concerned? Me? No way. I just happen to know that broken ribs suck."

"I'm fine." Tim growled back at both of them as he started to walk/hobble away.

Dick was quickly at Tim's side with a hand on his forearm to help him. "Your ankles are…"

"Fine." Tim finished for Dick as he tore his arm out of Dick's grasp with a visible grimace.

Jason just sat there staring at the two of them, and tried not to laugh. They were both being completely ridiculous as far as he was concerned. "And you call **me** the stubborn one? Look kid, you're fucked up and he's not going to just let you hobble your way around and pretend to be okay--mainly because he blames himself for your current condition--but the fact remains that you're stuck with the doting big brother. Well, at least until Alfred comes down here to see what all of the commotion is and puts your fucked up ass in bed."

Tim glared back at Jason, but didn't say anything to him. Tim knew that telling Jason he was right would only give him a bigger head than he already had, so he turned his attention back to Dick. "Don't blame yourself."

Dick gave Tim a dry look. "Right, because I'm not a bat and we don't blame ourselves for everything under the sun."

Tim shrugged with the shoulder that hadn't been dislocated. "I thought you liked trying new things."

Dick leaned over and mussed Tim's hair. "Very funny."

Tim tried to move away from Dick's hand, but everything hurt too much. "Ow"

Dick stared at him with a raised eyebrow. "Oh yeah, but you're fine."

Tim shrugged again as he continued to slowly make his way over to the computer. "I will be."

Jason was getting fed up with this. If the kid wanted to be an idiot and injure himself more, then so be it. That didn't mean he had to sit here and listen to this. "Hey, can we focus here? I came here for a reason, and the kid hasn't even told us anything about the attack. If you think it's the little creepy one, shouldn't we at least ask the geek if it was or not? Or am I the only who actually remembers the Bat training?"

Dick glared at Jason once again, but didn't say anything. Every time Jason turned out to be right about something Dick just envisioned smacking Jason's head off the cave floor, but he couldn't image why. "I was giving Tim some time to rest before we interrogated him."

"Yeah, well he doesn't seem to be into resting, so…" Jason let his voice trail off. He was pretty sure both of them understood where he was going, even if he did think Dick was slow on a regular basis.

Dick sighed. He was really hoping that Tim would rest some more, but Dick hadn't really expected him to. "So, Tim, what do you remember?"

Tim had finally made his way over to the computer and sat down. "I'm pretty sure it wasn't Damian. My attacker was silent and hit me from behind."

Jason leaned forward in his chair and stared at Tim wryly. "Oh, yeah, that completely makes sense…of course it wasn't Damian."

Tim turned his chair around to face Jason. "Have you ever heard Damian be silent…especially when he's going to attack one of us?"

Dick nodded. "He does have a point."

Jason glared at them both. "Ha ha, funny--but seriously, do you have any idea who attacked you, kid?"

Tim shrugged with his unharmed arm. "I don't know. I had just taken down the six gang members I had been dealing with when it had happened."

"So, most of the blood was from them?" Dick interrupted him.

Tim gave a small nod. "Yeah, anyway, I knew someone had been following me for most of the night, but the person just hung behind and watched, so I thought it was just Dick being overprotective as always."

Jason's gaze fell to the floor and he was silent for a moment. "So, we have the insane meta and the little demon spawn as suspects." It seemed as though he was speaking more to himself than to either of the other two people in the cave.

Tim carefully leaned back in his chair. "Why do you think it was Daisuke?"

Jason quickly looked up from the floor at that question. "Is there a reason I shouldn't suspect the back from the dead meta?"

Tim raised an eyebrow at him. "Is there a reason you should?"

Jason shrugged and leaned back in his chair as well. "I'm just keeping my mind open here, you know…possibilities, people."

Dick smirked as he interjected. "I don't know. Daisuke seems to only like to attack you, Jason."

Jason crossed his arms over his chest as he glared at Dick. "Meaning?"

Dick was still smirking when he shrugged. "I'm just wondering if you've maybe pissed the guy off somewhere down the line…you know, before all of this started."

"Like when?" Jason stared at Dick indignantly. "Before the night with the metal baseball bat, I had never met the guy."

Dick raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you sure?"

"What?" Jason was getting annoyed. "Of course I'm sure."

"Look," Dick held up his hands in the air defensively, "all I know is that you have a tendency to piss people off."

Before Jason could even respond Tim cut in. "Do I need to separate you two? Because, in this state, I'm just going to throw some batarangs at your heads."

"Tell me something, Dick, why do you put up with this kid?" Jason sneered.

Dick was about to say something, but Tim cut him off. "Yeah, you two have fun bickering. I'm going to go to bed." Tim slowly got to his feet and started making his way to the stairs.

Dick moved next to him quickly. "Do you want some help?"

Tim shook his head. "No, thanks, I'd hate to interrupt your bickering session."

The other two watched as Tim slowly made his way up the stairs. When Tim was finally gone, Jason turned to Dick. "You know, he really isn't any fun."

"Shut up." Dick walked over to the computer and sat down. "You're welcome to stay if you can be quiet."

Jason walked over and lightly punched Dick in the arm. "I thought the little geek was the one who enjoyed silence."

Dick shook his head. "Why are you here, anyway?"

Jason shrugged as he sat down on the desk. "No reason."

Dick stared at him with a raised eyebrow. "But you said earlier you came here for a reason, so what's your deal, Jason?"

Jason rolled his eyes. "Well, if you must know, I had something for the kid."

Dick folded his arms over his chest. "He has a name, you know."

Jason slid off the desk. "Whatever, look just give this to him, okay?" Jason rummaged through his pockets, pulled out a small box, handed it to Dick, and then turned to leave.

"Wait," Dick held out his hand. "What is it?"

Jason shrugged. "Something I think he needs." Jason didn't say anything else before leaving.

Dick turned back toward the computer, and placed the box on the desk. He'd check it for explosives later.

The End (for now)


	10. Chapter 10

"Here," Dick passed Tim a small, long, white box. "Jason left this for you."

Tim raised an eyebrow at him. "Jason? Did you check it over for…"

Dick interrupted Tim before he could finish his question. "It's been checked over three times…it's clean."

"Oh great. That means it's either something extremely embarrassing that I'll have to kill him for, or it's…" Tim trailed off as he opened the box and just stared at the thing inside.

"Or it's what?" Dick was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet in anticipation.

Tim just continued to stare at the object. "I assume something Jason thought I needed."

Dick nodded. "Yeah, he had said something like that…so what is it?"

Tim carefully picked up the object to show Dick. "It's a 9 inch Italian stiletto knife…red pearlex handle…kriss blade." Tim shrugged. "It does seem like Jason's style."

Dick shook his head. "Jason got you a knife, how surprising…not."

Tim shrugged again. "Hey, at least he didn't stab me through the shoulder and deliver it that way. Why do you think he got it for me, anyway?"

Before Dick could respond, Jason stepped out from the shadows. "I was going to get you a butterfly knife, but I didn't want the poor baby bird to hurt himself, so the kriss blade is a default. Plus, I think everyone should own one."

Dick rolled his eyes. "Of course you do, Jay."

Tim gave Jason a questioning look. "But why did you get it for me in the first place?"

Jason smirked evilly. "You're going to need it when we go kick that fucking meta's ass."

Tim blinked a few times. "I'm sorry…when…"

"We what?" Dick finished for Tim.

"I'm sick of running around, following some back-from-the-dead meta's rules. I want the geek to come with me. We're going to track the fucker down, and I'm getting answers. He left this on my door." Jason threw a small yellow piece of paper towards Tim.

Tim grabbed the piece of paper and stared at it for a moment before reading it out loud. "It says, 'you're still not focusing on the right person, hard-headed one.' Okay, well…that's…nice and all, but I can't go running around all over the place with you, Jason. I'm still healing from the last little incident."

Jason gave him one of his better bat glares. "It's not my fault you got your ass kicked, kid."

Tim held up his hand to stop Jason from continuing. "I never said it was."

Dick folded his arms over his chest. "Well, I'm not convinced that it isn't his fault."

"What?" Jason and Tim asked simultaneously.

"Think about it. We didn't have any of these problems before Jason randomly showed up." Dick gave Jason a dirty look.

Jason got into Dick's face. "What are you saying, Dick?" The last word was spoken as an insult.

"I'm just saying that maybe you should go deal with this problem by yourself, Jason." Dick glared as he matched Jason's tone.

Tim rolled his eyes as he stepped between the two of them. "I'm starting to think I should just keep buckets of water down here to throw on you two."

Dick turned towards Tim and scowled. "Very funny, Timmy."

Tim shrugged. "Hey, I don't think it's such a bad idea considering the way you two are constantly bickering."

Jason walked over and punched Tim in his injured arm. "I'm thinking we should string him up from his shoe laces. What do you think, Dick?"

Dick shook his head. "Nah, it isn't worth it. He'd just find something really horrible to pay us back with."

Tim rubbed his arm a little before turning back towards the two of them. "Great, well if you two are done talking about me like I'm not here, I have some work to do, so…" Tim trailed off as he made his way over to the computer.

Jason leaned over and nudged Dick. "He does that a lot, doesn't he?"

Dick nodded. "It's his own little way of dismissing us."

Jason stared at the back of Tim's head for a moment before turning back to Dick. "You know, I think I may actually prefer Bat's way better."

Dick raised an eyebrow at him. "You mean his 'glare, grunt, and then turn away from you' method?"

"Yeah, it doesn't seem so…" Jason trailed off while he searched for the right word.

"Harsh?" Dick supplied for him."

"Yeah." Jason nodded.

Tim glared at them over his shoulder. "You know I can still hear you, right?"

Jason smirked as he shifted toward Dick slightly. "He says that like we care."

Dick shook his head slightly. "Why don't we go upstairs and leave Mister Injured and Brooding alone for awhile."

Jason nodded once more as he started walking towards the stairs. "Fine, but I still want to go after the meta."

Dick began rubbing his temples as he followed Jason. "We'll see."

The End


	11. Chapter 11

Jason spent most of the afternoon with Dick. He told himself he was just avoiding going back home to sit alone in the dark, but the truth was, he didn't hate his time with Dick…not like he normally did anyway. Jason would have called it pleasant if he used words like that.

"So, do you want to patrol with me tonight?" Dick asked, as he shoveled more popcorn into his mouth.

Jason's eyes went wide and he knew Dick could see it. "What?" The three of them had pretty much avoided discussing their nightly routines as much as possible. Discussing their current meta/Damian problem was as far as that type of conversation went. Jason almost replied yes right away, just so he could mess with Tim while they were out. Since the kid was stuck with desk duty, it probably wouldn't have been too hard to annoy him, but patrolling with Dick was…something else entirely, and Jason wasn't sure that he was up for whatever that might bring. "Why would I want to patrol with you?"

Dick shrugged lazily, and it infuriated Jason how he was acting like they were discussing the weather or something. "Just thought--you're here…what the hell, but you know, if you're busy…" Dick let his voice trail off, leaving it completely in Jason's hands, and for once, Jason wasn't happy about that prospect one bit.

"I…" He was about to answer when Tim came in through the door, and Jason was silently grateful for the interruption.

Tim leaned against the couch, obviously tired from making his way up there from the cave. "Hey, Dick, what did you do with the small screwdriver set? I can't find it."

Dick smirked as he glanced away from the movie Jason and he had been watching. "Well, you seem to be in a better mood."

Tim rolled his eyes. "An 'I don't know' will do."

Dick shook his head. "Okay, so you're not in a better mood."

Tim ignored Dick and turned to Jason. "Jay, you wouldn't happen to have a small set on you, would you? Mine is upstairs in my room, and I really don't want to limp my way up there."

Jason shook his head. "No, what do you need it for?"

Tim moved to a seat on the other side of the room. "I was bored, and decided to take apart the mp3 player Dick got me for Christmas…I was going to upgrade it, too."

Jason stared at him for a moment. "You do know that when normal people are bored they go watch TV or something, right?"

"Since when does Tim do anything normal?" Dick chimed in.

Tim glared at him. "Look who's talking, Dick."

Dick ignored Tim's response, and turned his attention back to Jason. "So, Jay, you never answered the question."

"What question?" Jason and Tim spoke simultaneously. Jason was playing dumb in the hopes Dick would just drop it.

Dick shut off the movie. It wasn't like any of them were actually watching it now, anyway. "I asked Jason earlier if he wanted to patrol with me tonight."

Tim stared wide-eyed at Dick for a moment. "You did what?"

Jason almost laughed at Tim's response, knowing that if he had been drinking something at the time it would have been sprayed all over the two of them. "Yeah, but I don't think that would be a good idea."

"Why? Don't you think you could keep up with Dick?" Tim was smirking at him.

Jason emitted a low growl, but otherwise kept his anger under control. "Who's to say Dick wouldn't have problems keeping up with me?"

Dick rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right…whatever you need to tell yourself, Jay."

"Fine, I'll go." The words were out of his mouth before he even knew what he was saying. Jason silently cursed his temper, his big mouth, and his stupid pride all at once.

Dick leaned back in his seat with a cocky smirk…he looked like he had just won something. "Well, now that that's settled, should we continue with our movie?"

Jason slumped back in his seat and folded his arms over his chest. He had every intention of ignoring the movie and just sulking for a while. "Whatever you want, golden boy."

Dick resumed the movie, and returned to eating his popcorn. "Don't brood; Tim might feel the need to try to outdo you."

Jason and Tim both glared over at Dick before Tim got up to leave. "I'll be down in the cave if you need me."

Jason got off the couch and stretched. "Do you want me to go get your screwdriver set for you?"

Dick and Tim both stopped and stared at Jason in disbelief that he was being 'nice', and then Tim's expression changed to confusion. "Um, why?"

Jason rolled his eyes. "You said you wanted it, but you didn't want to hobble up there, and I'm bored anyway."

Tim nodded before continuing towards the cave. "It should be on my desk."

Jason walked into Tim's room and was almost annoyed with how bare it was. His laptop was sitting closed on the bed. There were a few books, notebooks, and pens strewn around the place, but other than that there didn't seem to be much else in the room. He walked over to the desk, but didn't see the screwdriver set, so he started looking through the drawers of the desk. He found the screwdriver set in the second drawer he tried, but decided to continue looking through Tim's stuff anyway. He told himself he was just gathering information on the kid like he was taught, but the truth was, Jason had no idea why he was so interested in what the kid had. He didn't think it was likely that he would find dirty magazines or anything else that he might consider interesting, but he had expected to find more than he did. There was enough technological stuff in the room to make Jason's head hurt just from looking at it, but very little in the way of personal items. Jason grabbed the screwdriver set and headed down to the cave.

Jason wasn't even off the last step before Tim appeared before him. "Did you have fun looking through my stuff?"

Jason eyes widened. "How did you know?"

Tim smirked as he grabbed the screwdriver set from Jason. "I didn't, but I figured you couldn't resist."

"Why don't you have anything personal in your room?" The question left Jason's mouth before he had time to stop himself, and Jason couldn't help but wonder what the hell was wrong with him. He wasn't exactly known for holding his tongue, but that didn't mean he didn't know how…normally.

Tim shrugged and slowly headed back over to the desk. "I have what I need."

Jason stared at the back of Tim's retreating head. "That seems a little too much like the Bat for my liking."

Tim turned to face him. "Tell me something, Jason. Why do you care what I do, or whom I happen to be like?"

Jason lazily sauntered past Tim to sit on the desk. "I don't care. It just seems odd, that's all."

Tim raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh?"

Jason absentmindedly sifted through the papers sitting next to him. "Yeah, Robin isn't supposed to be another Batman, you know?"

Tim sat down in the chair as he blankly stared up at Jason. "Do you really want to proceed with this conversation? It could get ugly."

Jason glared at him. He was getting sick of watching this kid retreating in on himself and going completely emotionless on him. It was too reminiscent of a certain Bat. "Don't do that."

Tim picked up the mp3 player he had been fiddling with earlier and started to take it apart. "Don't do what?"

Jason clenched his hands into fists, trying to keep his cool. "Don't act all unemotional and careless…don't act like this conversation doesn't bother you."

Tim shifted his steely gaze from the device to Jason. "You don't know anything about me, Jason."

Jason jumped off the desk, and began pacing the length of the cave behind Tim. "I know that everyone who knows you is worried that you're going to become another Bruce, and I know that you aren't doing anything to curb those concerns."

Tim laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I find it funny that your biggest problem with Dick is that he's always looking to please people. You hate that so much that you deliberately go out of your way to anger people; and yet your biggest problem with me is the fact that I don't care what concerns people may or may not have about me."

Jason growled, walked over to where Tim was sitting, and punched the chair as hard as he could. "Get off your fucking high horse. It fucking matters to you too."

Tim spun the chair around to face Jason, and Tim's eyes practically glowed with fury. "Why the hell do you care, Jason? What could you possibly know of it? It's not like it matters anyway. It's not your life, so DROP IT!"

Jason shook out his hand as he continued pacing. "I just hate it when assholes like you pretend not to feel anything. Whether you like it or not, you're human, get the fuck over it."

Tim returned to what he had been doing previously. "You know what I think your real problem is? You can't go mere hours without pissing someone off."

Jason walked back over and sat on the desk again. "Maybe I just don't like it when people lie to themselves."

Tim steepled his fingers in front of him. "You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were one of the ones concerned about me, Jason, but I know that can't be why we're having this conversation."

Jason leaned forward and fixed Tim with a hard stare. "Why do you care? You'd rather pretend to be numb than deal with anything."

Tim glared at him again. "What exactly are you talking about?" Tim cleared his throat before continuing in a more even tone. "I mean, I assume there's something specific that's got you so agitated."

Jason gripped the edge of the desk tightly. "You got your ass kicked thoroughly--to the point where you look like you were tortured--and you don't even have the decency to say ouch."

Tim's eyes slightly widened at Jason's response. He wasn't really expecting that to be the reason Jason found it necessary to have this talk with him. "Excuse me?"

Jason took a calming breath. He knew yelling wasn't going to get this kid to react anymore than throwing him through a window would. "You're in pain. You can't hide that fact, and yet you don't say anything about it if you can help it. When you admitted that you really didn't want to make your way up to your room because it isn't necessarily easy for you, you looked like you were mentally scolding yourself for it--like admitting that fact was more painful than the broken bones and dislocated shoulder and other stuff was."

Tim stared at him blankly. "I'm still missing your point, Jason."

"My point is…you know what? Fine, I don't have a point. You want to be HIM, be my guest." Jason turned to walk away.

Tim got up to follow him, albeit slowly. "That's the third time you've mentioned that. Why do you care? Why does it bother you so much?"

Jason spun around to face him. "Because it does."

Tim folded his arms over his chest. "That's not a reason."

Jason growled at him like an animal. "You want to know why it fucking bothers me so much? Because you're a fucking Robin, and you're not acting like it."

Tim glared back at him. "Just because I'm not acting like you or Dick does not mean I am not fulfilling my Robinly duties."

Jason rolled his eyes as he went back to walking around the cave. "Of course you would fucking say it like that. Never mind that you most likely got your ass handed to you by a fucking kid."

"If it was Damian who attacked me, it happened after I had been dealing with six gang members, and that kid is an interdimensional demon that was trained by the League of Assassins, so all of that factors in, and I don't really feel that horrible about it. I'm still kicking myself for it…just not nearly as much as normal." Tim stopped in his rant and just stared. He hadn't meant to say that last bit, and even Jason looked shocked that he had.

Jason took a moment to recover from his surprise at Tim's admission, and then raised an eyebrow at him. "So is that what this is all about? You're mentally kicking yourself for not being better? Fucking Bruce…" Jason trailed off. He didn't really feel like having that rant right now.

Tim shrugged. "I'm a bat, what do you expect? And aren't you the one who started this little…moment?"

"Dick's worried." Jason stared at him as though it was the most obvious excuse for even bothering to confront Tim.

Tim raised an eyebrow at him. "Since when do you care about that?"

Jason shrugged lazily as he started looking over the printouts Tim had laying out for tonight's patrol. "It's distracting him from the meta, and I really want to kill that fucking meta."

Tim rolled his eyes at him. "He isn't going to let you kill Daisuke, Jason."

Jason gave him a questioning look. "You think he can stop me?"

Tim shook his head at Jason. "You know you wouldn't still be here, you wouldn't be talking to me, you wouldn't have bothered with any of this if you didn't think there might be something to the way we work."

Jason moved back over to where Tim was sitting. "No, I know there is something MISSING from the way you guys work."

"Right, Jason," Tim stared at him disbelievingly, "or maybe you just miss the family."

Jason glared at him harshly. "None of you are my fucking family."

Tim shrugged once again. "Once a bat always a bat."

Jason's glare intensified for a fraction of a second. "We are not the fucking musketeers here."

"Nope, we're better." Tim smirked. "Have fun patrolling with Dick tonight. I expect some actually creative insults." Tim walked back to his seat, and Jason knew the conversation was over. He had been dismissed, but for some reason, Jason didn't hate it as much as before.

Jason planned to take a nap before dealing with his patrol with Dick. He knew he was going to need it. As Jason walked out of the cave he couldn't help but feel like he had actually accomplished something with Tim. He wasn't sure why, or what, or why he cared, but it almost made him want to smile…or at least smirk to himself.

XYZXYZ

Dick quietly crept into the room where Jason was napping, while holding Tim's Bo staff. He wasn't sure what waking Jason would be like, but he didn't want to take any chances. He didn't need any injuries before patrol even started. Dick was almost hoping that just walking into the room would wake him, but apparently Jason was more tired than he had let on, because Dick was already halfway to the bed Jason was sleeping on, and he hadn't even stirred at all.

Slowly, Dick lifted the Bo staff and inched it closer to Jason. After releasing the breath he hadn't even noticed he'd been holding, Dick tapped Jason on the arm with the Bo staff once, and waited for the fallout…but nothing happened. Dick opened his eyes, which he hadn't even remembered shutting, after a moment of silence. At the very least, he was expecting Jason to turn over and throw something at him, but there Jason was, still sound asleep. Dick sighed to himself, and again used the Bo staff to tap Jason on the arm, harder this time. Still nothing happened. After a few more tries, Dick took off his shoe and threw it at Jason, but made sure to pull the throw. "Time to get up, Jay."

Jason rolled over, grabbed the offending shoe and threw it back at Dick, not bothering to pull the throw like Dick had. "Don't wanna." Jason whined as he rolled back over.

Dick dodged the shoe, knowing full well that if it had hit him he would have had a nice shoe sized bruise. "Too bad, it's almost time to go."

Jason sat up and ran a hand over his face. "I was having a good dream, you know. You couldn't talk."

Dick glared at him playfully as he put his shoe back on. "Ha, ha, now get downstairs." Dick walked out without another word.

Jason grumbled to himself as he made his way down to the cave. When he entered the cave he found Dick half dressed already. "So, what's the plan for tonight?"

Dick smirked as he pulled on the top of his costume. "Don't get yourself, or _anyone else_ killed."

Jason rolled his eyes at him as he got ready to go as well. "It could be fun."

Dick stared at him blankly. "I doubt it."

XYZXYZ

Their patrol had started out simply enough--nothing out of the ordinary--well, for Gotham anyway. Dick was almost bored with how routine everything was…even with Jason with him. He was actually impressed that Jason had managed to control himself for most of the night…well, other than the insults he and Tim were exchanging over the comms, but that was to be expected. When Dick had asked Jason to join him on patrol, he hadn't actually expected Jason to accept, and Dick was more than a little weary when he had. Dick sighed to himself as he turned toward Jason. He was about to ask if Jason wanted to turn in early when they both noticed another figure on the roof. They both fell into fighting stances as they faced the newcomer.

"Good evening." Daisuke spoke as he emerged from the shadows.

Dick tensed immediately, not really sure what would happen. He didn't hold out much hope that Jason would just relax and let him deal with this, especially not after the way Jason had been talking about going after him before. "What do you want?"

"Who cares what he wants? I want him on the ground bleeding." Jason growled as he got ready to pounce on the man.

"Jay!" Dick barked as he held Jason back. "Not now."

Jason glared, but backed off. "Answer, now!"

"Have you devised a plan for the demon?" Daisuke spoke calmly, despite the two vigilantes staring daggers down at him.

"We ask the questions here, meta." Jason sneered.

Dick glanced between the two for a moment. He wasn't entirely sure that he could hold Jason back for much longer, but he was fairly certain that this man could easily take Jason out. "Jay, take a walk."

Jason glowered at Dick. "No."

"JASON!" Dick was growing increasingly more agitated. He wanted to avoid whatever fallout he could, as much as he could. "Walk now! Do another sweep of this part of the city if you want, but I need some time alone with the meta." Dick hated putting it that way, but knew it was necessary to get Jason to leave.

"Fine." Jason turned as though to leave, but instead of jumping off the side of the building he lunged at Daisuke. Jason hands automatically went for his throat.

"What the hell, Jason?" Dick leapt to pull him off of Daisuke.

Dick grabbed Jason, and tried to extricate him from Daisuke, but Jason spun around holding one of his knives. "Back off, Grayson."

Dick took an involuntary step back. Jason's eyes were wild and crazy. "Come on, Jay. We can't get answers from him if you slit his throat."

Jason's eyes narrowed as his face contorted in a sickening smirk. "I don't have to slit his throat to get what I want."

"And what is it that you want, Jay?" Dick was slowly inching closer to him.

Jason stared at him as though it should be obvious. "Him…in pain."

"Alright," Dick took another small step forward. "Well, why don't we all just take a calming breath here and figure this out."

Jason leered wickedly. "What's to figure out? He's an ass."

Daisuke rolled his eyes, and then turned his attention to Dick. "Do you mind if I just…" Instead of finishing his sentence Daisuke knocked Jason off of him. "I suggest you come up with a plan for the demon and soon." He stood up, brushed himself off, and was gone before either of them could react.

"Fucker." Jason got to his feet once Daisuke was gone.

Dick walked over to Jason and smacked him upside the head. "He could have killed you."

Jason's expression was bored when he shrugged lazily. "So what?"

Dick took a calming breath before he coolly turned toward Jason and promptly knocked him out. Dick took a moment to himself to just rub his temples and breathe before grabbing Jason's unconscious form, and dragging him back to the cave.

When Jason awoke, he was strapped to a medical bed. "What the hell is going on? Let me the fuck go right now and I won't gut you like a fish, Grayson."

Dick reached over and grabbed the strap over Jason's chest. For a second Jason thought his threat had worked and Dick was actually letting him go, but all Dick had done was make the restraint tighter. "I'm seeing if there's a chip in your brain, or something because there's got to be something wrong with you. What the hell were you thinking? I'd say you don't even have a brain, but the EKG is insisting that you do. Maybe it's malfunctioning."

Jason struggled against the restraints, but to no avail. "Grayson, when I get out of here…"

Dick cut him off before Jason could even finish his threat. "Gut me like a fish…yeah, yeah, I've heard. Now, will you stop moving? You're making this harder than it has to be."

Jason continued to struggle against the restraints, even though he knew there was no point. "Stop moving? What the hell, Dick? That's like paralyzing fish in a barrel…it's just not a fair fight."

Dick raised an eyebrow at him. "What's with all the fish comments?"

Jason tried to shrug. "I don't know. Something about you just automatically makes me think of small slimy things."

Dick smiled mischievously before turning away to get something. "Really? I think of snails, too, when I'm around you."

"That's not funny…OUCH!" Jason yelled as Dick stuck him with something. "What the hell are you doing?"

Dick tsked at him as he waved a long finger in Jason's face. "I warned you to stay still…I don't think the needle hit anything major."

Jason froze for a moment. "You don't think?"

"Would you two please shut up? I'm trying to read here." Jason heard Tim's voice come from somewhere in the darkness.

Jason tried to turn his head toward where he heard Tim's voice coming from. "Hey, kid, let me out of here and I'll be as quiet as you want."

Jason heard the snap of a book being shut, and the sound of Tim shuffling his way over to where they were. "No, I agree with Dick…something is definitely wrong with you."

Jason snarled, and resumed trying to find a way out of the restraints. "You bastard, I swear I'm going to…"

Tim sat down in a chair next to Jason. "Hang me upside from my feet and beat me with a stick…so you've said, and I'm still not impressed."

Jason turned his head to focus on what Dick was doing. "Does the kid have to be so blank when he says that?"

Dick shrugged, while still facing away from Jason. "I don't know, did you have to attack the only lead we have to what's going on?"

Jason blankly stared at Dick's back. "Yes."

Dick stared at him harshly, before shaking his head at him. "No, you didn't, and even if I don't find anything wrong with you, I'm leaving you strapped to that medical bed until I think you've gotten the point."

"The point being you're a fucking ass?" Jason suggested for him.

Tim smacked Jason with his book. "I'm still trying to read here." He turned his attention to Dick. "Do you think we should duct tape his mouth shut?"

Dick shrugged. "I don't think it'd do any good, do you?"

Tim sighed. "Good point."

Jason sent a death glare at both of them, and resumed his futile attempts to escape. "I hate you both."

"We know," they spoke simultaneously.

The End (for now)


	12. Chapter 12

Dick sat down and slumped in his chair a little. He felt like he had been dealing with Jason for an eternity. "I have Jason sedated."

Tim nodded to him. "Good, it's one of the only times that he's quiet."

Dick gave him a small smile. "Well, that and when he's…no, unconscious really is the only time he shuts up."

Tim rubbed his eyes tiredly as he glanced over the results from the tests they had just finished. "So, are you actually expecting to find something wrong with him?"

Dick shrugged. "I don't know…it's Jason…stupidity and irrational decisions are kind of his forte, but even he knows when to back off to get what we need."

Tim raised an eyebrow at him in disbelief. "Really?"

"Sometimes?"

"Uh huh."

"Okay, so not really, but still…" Dick let his voice trail off.

Tim rolled his eyes at him. "'But still' is not an argument."

"Okay, Batman, I'll be sure to remember that."

Tim flinched, almost unnoticeably; the moment the sentence left Dick's mouth. "Dick, could you not…" Tim was trying to look blank, but there was some emotion showing through his eyes, and Dick knew that without meaning to, he had hit a nerve.

"Whoa, did I miss something?"

"It's nothing." Tim turned back to the desk and the papers he had laid out in front of him.

"Tim?" Dick placed a hand on his shoulder and forced the chair to spin back around.

When Tim gazed up at Dick this time, he was completely emotionless. "Shouldn't we be focusing on Jason here?"

Dick shook his head. "He's unconscious. We'll focus on him later. Want to tell me why what I said upset you?"

"No." Tim's tone was even, but Dick could tell he was practically seething underneath the emotionless facade.

Dick hung his head slightly. "Can you tell me anyway?"

Tim sighed to himself. "Jason and I had a talk earlier about…that."

Dick raised an eyebrow at him. "About what?"

"Me being like…" Tim trailed off.

"Batman?" Dick suggested for him.

Tim gave a curt nod. "Yeah."

"Um, you know, normally I'd tell you not to listen to Jay, but…" Dick stopped speaking the moment he saw Tim's gaze drop to the ground.

"But this time, he's not wrong." Tim spoke softly.

Dick shook his head. "I didn't say that."

Tim glared up at him. "You also aren't denying it."

Dick ran his hand through his hair out of frustration. "I never said it was a bad thing."

Tim's jaw automatically tightened. "Your actions make that quite clear though."

Dick stared at him wide-eyed, and slightly shock at that admission. "Tim, I…"

Tim took a calming breath before continuing. "It's fine. We should get back to work."

"Tim…" Dick trailed off not really sure what to say.

"Work, Dick, I'm sure you remember what that is." Tim's tone was suddenly harsher than it had been before when he turned away.

Dick gripped the sides of Tim's chair tightly as he spun Tim around to face him. "No, for once we're actually going to talk this out."

Tim glared at him callously. "I doubt either of us wants to get into this fight, so really…"

Dick pushed away from Tim's chair and began pacing. "What fight? There's no fight. There isn't even a conversation because **you** just block me out and refuse to even discuss anything."

Tim clutched the armrests of his chair until his knuckles were white. "What's there to discuss? You're just going to give me more useless platitudes, which frankly aren't all that pleasant, and I'm going to pretend it actually does something for me."

Dick suddenly stopped pacing to glare at Tim. "Hey, I try to be there for you."

"Yeah, except when I actually need you." Tim's voice was deceivingly calm when he spoke.

Dick was too shocked at the response to speak for a moment, and when he finally regained his ability to speak all that came out was, "What?"

Tim got up, and started walking away. "Nothing, it's nothing. Drop it. I'll be fine."

Dick raced after Tim, grabbed a hold of his arm, and pulled him back toward him gently. "No, wait, do you really feel like that?"

"No." Tim refused to face him.

"You're lying."

Tim laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Dick, when are any of us not lying?"

Dick was about to answer, but was interrupted by Jason's voice. "Let me go!"

Dick was caught between finishing the conversation with Tim, and dealing with Jason. Unfortunately, the choice was taken away from him when Tim went back over to the desk, grabbed a few of the papers off of it, and then went to Jason. Dick followed Tim, silently promising himself to finish that conversation later.

"You're fine…stupid, but fine." Tim slammed the readouts down onto Jason's abdomen. "Oh, and the next time you almost get yourself killed, could you please do it on your own time?" Tim walked away before either of them could respond.

Jason turned as much as he could to stare at Dick. "What the hell is his problem?"

Dick didn't respond to Jason's question as he leaned over and released Jason's restraints. "What did you say to him before we left on patrol?"

Jason wasn't sure if his brain was being slow due to the sedative, or if Dick was just asking random questions for the fun of it. "What? Why?"

"Answer the damn question." Dick growled more out of his frustration with Tim than anything else.

Jason sat up and just stared at him with a blank expression. "You know that voice may work on criminals, although I don't know why, but it won't on me."

"Don't you mean OTHER criminals?" Dick countered.

"Is it that time of the month for all the bats, and I just wasn't informed?" Jason smiled at him sweetly.

Dick ground his teeth, and tried not to let all of his rage out on Jason. "Answer the question, Jason."

Jason shrugged, and couldn't imagine why this was so important. "Nothing."

Dick patience was growing thin, and he was getting dangerously close to hitting something...mainly Jason. "You said something to him."

Jason rolled his eyes at how ridiculous Dick was being. "What I did or didn't say doesn't matter. It's not like it made an impact on him anyway."

Dick sighed, as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "It did."

"Wait, that's why he's being a little bitch?" Jason sounded shocked.

Dick took a calming breath before asking his question again. "What did you say to him?"

Jason shrugged lazily. "Just stuff."

Dick started clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides. "Look, I already know it had something to do with him being like Batman."

Jason nodded slightly. "Yeah, there was that, and I mentioned something about him not being anything like how a Robin should be."

"Shit." Dick sat down and held his head in his hands.

"What?" Jason looked confused. It wasn't like what he said wasn't true.

Dick ran his hand through his already disheveled hair. "Tim…he doesn't…he's been through a lot."

Jason raised an eyebrow at him. "And that gives him free reign to be an ass how?"

Dick shook his head. "It doesn't…it's just…" He trailed off while he searched for the right words.

Jason rolled his eyes. "Spit it out."

Dick sighed, as he tried to explain it. "I don't think he's dealt."

Jason huffed out a response. "That's not the problem."

Dick raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh?"

Jason stared at him as though it should have been obvious. "The problem--the real problem--is that he's dealt the same way Bruce would have."

Dick slumped farther into his chair. "And I'm supposed to do what about that?"

Jason looked at him as though he was crazy. "You're asking me? The big brother thing is your prerogative, not mine."

"Yeah, I know…" Dick hung his head. "It's just that most days I think Robin is the only thing he has left, and since he's been hurt and unable to go out, he's gotten to be…"

Jason interrupted him before Dick could even finish that statement. "More of an asshole?"

Dick forced out a breath. "Look who's talking."

Jason held up his hands defensively. "Hey, it's kinda my status quo. For him, it's just annoying."

Dick got up and started pacing. "I should talk to him, shouldn't I?"

"Um, again you're asking me? Besides, I don't think talking to him does any good, but I can kick his ass if you want." Jason suggested innocently.

Dick sighed at Jason's response. "Can we, for once, solve a problem without violence please?"

Jason laughed. "When does the bat family EVER handle any family problems properly?"

Dick shrugged. "I guess we don't."

Jason jumped off of the medical bed he was sitting on, and started stretching. "Now, can you stop looking like a sad kicked puppy? You look pathetic."

Dick rolled his eyes at him. "Jason's awake and acting like an ass…I'm just so surprised."

Jason finished stretching and turned to face Dick. "Whatever, how about we forget the 'family' bullshit, and work on what the hell we're going to do about the evil brat."

Dick raised an eyebrow at him in disbelief. "Oh, so you've finally given up on trying to take down Daisuke then?"

Jason shook his head. "No, I'm just prioritizing here."

"Yeah, well, call me crazy, but I'm thinking we need Tim for this. When he's not consumed by…" Dick trailed off searching for the right word.

"His bitchy emotions?" Jason supplied for him.

Dick rolled his eyes at Jason's response. "No, anyway he's fairly good at plans and stuff."

Jason dramatically stroked his chin in a thinking pose. "I'm thinking we should let him go beat himself up some more about getting hurt in the first place, do some planning by ourselves, and then go kick the crap out of him…I mean encourage him to get over it."

Dick flipped into a head stand and began walking around on his hands. "What's the point? You're just going to say we should kill Damian. I'm going to say no to that, and then we're going to get into an argument, which is why we haven't actually accomplished anything as far as a plan is concerned since we found out. Not to mention, this time, Tim isn't even down here to separate us before we nearly kill each other."

"Right, because you won't just knock me out again and strap me down to a fucking bed." Jason growled.

Dick flipped back onto his feet, and held up his hands in the air defensively. "Hey, that was necessary."

"Uh huh."

Dick glared at him. "Jason, don't start."

Jason smirked evilly. "I'm pretty sure I already did."

Dick heaved a large sigh. "Ugh, can we focus please?"

Jason's smirk widened. "Who says I'm not focused?"

Dick sat down on the medical bed. "Okay…can we focus on something other than death and destruction?"

Jason leaned against it next to Dick. "But without those, what other topics do we have to discuss?"

"The weather?" Dick suggested innocently.

Jason stared at him for a moment blankly before continuing. "Anyway, I can just knife the kid."

Dick glared at him again. "What?"

Jason shrugged simply. "Well, you wanted a plan, and I'm kind of in the mood for a fight."

Dick rolled his eyes. "You're always in the mood for a fight."

Jason smiled at that. "So…spar?"

Dick folded his arms over his chest. "I'm not fighting you, Jason."

"Why?" Jason almost whined out the question.

"I'm tired." Dick feigned a yawn.

Jason shook his head. "You're never tired."

"I'm old." Dick tried again.

Jason rolled his eyes. "You're not that old."

"I don't wanna." This time, Dick was the one whining

Jason was growing tired of Dick's griping. "Do you always complain this much?"

Dick nodded somberly. "Yes."

Jason sighed to himself. "You're really no fun today."

Dick shrugged. "Haven't slept yet."

Jason stared at him skeptically. "Is this the part where I'm supposed to care?"

Dick scoffed. "You? Of course not. The world might just end a little faster if you did."

Jason smirked again. "Well, as long as we're all cleared up on that."

Dick slid down off of the medical bed. "I'm going to talk to Tim. Can you please try not to explode or destroy anything while I'm not here?"

Jason rolled his eyes. "I just don't know how I'll manage that. There are just so many things in the cave that are explodable."

"Explodable isn't a word." Dick walked over to another part of the cave, before coming back holding something. "Here," He handed the book he was holding to Jason. "You might want to try looking through the dictionary while I'm gone."

Jason placed the dictionary down next to him on the medical bed. "Yeah, yeah, don't you have a brat to go argue with?"

Dick shook his head. "No, I have a bat to go talk with."

Jason grinned mischievously. "It's the same thing."

Dick rolled his eyes. "Jason, shut up."

"Dick…" Jason started before he was cut off.

Dick didn't even want to hear whatever Jason's response was going to be. "Walking away now."

"Just like every other bat I know." Jason called to him as Dick started up the stairs--for no other reason than just to annoy him.

Dick sighed to himself. He didn't think he could handle dealing with more than one of his brothers' insecurities at a time.

Dick found Tim in his room reading. So far, so good, at least he wasn't doing 'work'. "So, about what you said in the cave."

Tim didn't even bother to look up from his book. "I was being facetious."

Dick walked over and sat down on Tim's bed. "Somehow, I doubt that."

"Don't." Tim spoke as he turned the page forcefully.

Dick was about ten seconds from tearing that book out of Tim's hands. "And why shouldn't I, Timmy?"

Tim put the book down next to him. "Because it's not a big deal…I'm acting like an emotional idiot again. Isn't that what Jason said?"

Dick turned to face Tim fully. "We really need to discuss this 'you eavesdropping on my conversations with Jason' thing."

Tim glared faintly. "Yeah, or maybe you two should just talk quieter."

Dick gave up. It was just easier that way. "Sorry."

"Anyway," Tim leaned over to grab some papers sitting on his nightstand. "I've come up with some plans to deal with the demon spawn."

Dick couldn't help but smile at that. "Of course you did. Why don't you come down to the cave and share them with me and Jason at the same time."

Tim sighed. "If I must."

The End (for now)


	13. Chapter 13

Jason pushed away from the table where he was sitting, disgusted with amount of paper sitting in front of him. "265 plans…that's how many we've gone through. How much longer is this going to take?"

Tim glared at him for interrupting. "You're right, Jason. Let's just shoot him, and hope that solves our problem."

Jason perked up at that. "Really?"

"No." Dick and Tim both spoke simultaneously.

"Fine, but you have to admit 265 is a little excessive."

Dick smirked. "No, 326 is excessive."

"And how many plans does Timmy have?"

They both turned to look at Tim as he held up his hands in the air defensively. "I plead the fifth on that."

Jason sighed. "See…"

Tim scowled. "You know, Jason, we'd get through this a lot faster if you'd shut up."

Jason started pacing the length of the cave in order to stretch his legs. "I still don't get why this is an issue. He's evil…let's just kill the bastard and call it good."

Dick rolled his eyes at Jason's response. "And then we'll go kill Daisuke, and live happily ever after, right?"

Jason nodded. "Right."

Dick glowered at him. "Wrong."

Jason raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

Dick sighed as he began to massage his temples. "Well, besides the fact that we could technically call you evil…that just isn't how we work, Jason."

Jason folded his arms over his chest as he sat back down. "That's because the way you work is stupid."

Dick curled his hands into fists out of frustration. "Oh, so our way is stupid because we don't leave corpses in our wake?"

Jason shook his head. He didn't understand what Dick wasn't getting about this. "You're way is stupid because it isn't effective."

Dick was about to reply when he noticed that the other person in the room was being extraordinarily quiet. "Tim, why aren't you saying anything?"

Tim shrugged. "No reason."

"Tim!" Dick growled back at him.

Jason smirked as he watched the interaction. "See, he gets it."

Dick spun around to face Jason. "No, he doesn't."

"Yeah, then why is he still being quiet?"

Before Dick could answer, Tim spoke. "Because I can see your point of view, Jason. I don't agree with it, but I can see it."

Dick turned back to stare at Tim worriedly. "Tim, that's a dangerous line of thinking."

"Why? Because I get it?"

"Because it's wrong."

"I never said it wasn't."

"Kinda what you're implying here, little brother."

"I'm just saying…"

Jason interrupted before Tim could finish his sentence. "That I'm not completely wrong."

Tim shook his head. "No, that your way has some appeal to it."

"TIM!" Dick sounded shocked and angry at the same time.

Tim merely raised an eyebrow at him. "What?"

Dick felt an overwhelming urge to tug at his own hair. "How can you say that?"

Tim looked genuinely confused. "Say what?"

"THAT!"

"What? That Jason's way has appeal?"

"Yeah."

Tim shrugged again. "Well, it does."

"Yeah, if you're a psycho."

Jason glared at Dick from his seat. "I'm sitting right here, you know."

"Shut up, I'll deal with you later." Dick hissed at Jason before turning his attention back to Tim. "Tim, what the hell are you thinking?"

"That we're not exactly as effective as we could be."

"And what, you think we could be more effective if we killed?"

Tim shook his head. He couldn't understand why Dick was getting so upset over this. "No, he has the same efficiency that we do."

Dick scowled at Tim. "So what?"

"So, I don't think we should…"

Dick interrupted Tim before he could finish. "What? Knock his idea until we try it?"

Tim took a calming breath before answering. "I was going to say judge him."

Dick looked confused. "Who said I was judging him?"

"Well, given you're judging me right now I guess I just assumed…"

Dick held up a hand to prevent Tim from continuing. "I'm not judging you."

Tim rolled his eyes. "Right; your eyes tell me differently."

"Tim…" Dick trailed off, not really sure what to say.

"Look, if we're gonna do this Damian thing, I should go get the stuff we're gonna need. Try not to kill each other while I'm gone." Tim turned to leave.

"No problem, I don't kill." Dick glared over at Jason.

"Right, because you're just so much better than the rest of us, right, Grayson?" Jason snarled in response.

"I'm better than you, Todd." Dick growled at him out of anger and frustration.

Jason raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh really?"

Tim got between the two of them before punches could be thrown. "ENOUGH! Both of you! God…I'm not even out of the cave yet."

"Dick started it." Jason glared over at Dick.

Tim rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry; how old are you?"

Jason just ignored Tim's question. "Don't you have something to do?"

"Don't you?" Tim countered.

Jason leaned back in his chair. "Not really."

"Well, then shut up while Tim and I talk." Dick started walking towards the stairs.

Tim just stayed where he was. "I don't think we have anything else to discuss, Dick."

Dick spun around to face Tim. "I do."

"You don't like the way that I think. Unfortunately for you it's my brain, and you don't get to decide how it works."

"But Tim…"

"What?" Tim snapped, he was getting impatient and annoyed.

"I'm worried."

Tim sighed to himself. "You always are."

"Yeah, and from what I just heard you say it's clear to me that I should be."

"Why? Because statistically we're just as useless as he is." Tim gestured to Jason.

Jason bolted into a standing position. "I'm not useless."

Dick got between the two of them. "Jason, stay out of this, and Tim, I know you don't actually believe that."

Tim rolled his eyes. "I didn't say we were completely useless."

"Right, just mostly."

"I didn't say that either." Tim was trying to keep from getting angry, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult by the second.

Dick folded his arms over his chest. "Sure as hell sounded like it."

"I made a simple observation, that's all."

Dick looked unconvinced at that. "Uh huh."

Tim sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. "Look, it's not like I'm saying we should go out and kill, or that killing isn't wrong. I just don't think we have any right to judge him."

"That really doesn't sound like what you're saying."

Jason rolled his eyes. "Oh, surprise, surprise. Dick Grayson is hearing what he wants to hear instead of what's actually being said."

Dick spun around to glare at Jason. "Jason, I thought I told you to stay out of this."

"I don't take orders from you, golden boy."

"I'm sorry. Who was it that came to us for help? Oh, that's right, you did."

"No, I came to Tim for help. No one asked for your help, Dick." Jason spat the name out like it was venom.

"Which makes me wonder if you didn't have this all planned out from the start."

Jason was suddenly more confused than angry. "Had what planned out from the start?"

"Oh, come on, Jason. You really expect me to believe that Tim reached his decision about you and your choices on his own."

Tim stepped between the two of them. "Whoa, if you want to get into a fight with Jason, far be it from me to stop you--mainly because I think it's impossible to stop the two of you from fighting--but don't blame me for it. Unlike some people in this room, I can handle forming a conscious thought on my own. I don't need to be told how to think."

"Well, if that's the case, then I'm glad you can't be out on the streets right now, little brother. Because thinking like that just isn't…" Dick trailed off while he searched for the right word.

"Isn't what? Allowed? Screw you, Dick!" Tim glared harshly at him. "You don't get to decide what is and is not allowed, and you sure as hell don't get to decide what I can and cannot think about. It's not like I'm standing here holding a loaded gun, and getting ready to go follow Jason into the night."

"Yeah, well, with the way you've been talking I'm not so sure you wouldn't be if you were able to."

Tim was too shocked and livid to respond. He couldn't believe that Dick would actually say something like that. Instead of speaking he just limped over to Jason's empty chair and sat down.

"Maybe the kid _should_ be going out with me at night." Jason snarled at Dick. "I sure as hell wouldn't have allowed him to get this fucked up in the first place; because unlike you, Dick, I would have been watching his back…especially since we know the little demon freak already tried to kill him--more than once."

Dick glowered at him. "Oh, I know you did not just bring that up."

"I'm pretty sure I just did, Dickie bird. The question is, what are you going to do about it?"

Dick was about to two seconds away from punching Jason in the face when all three of them stopped and turned toward the booming voice behind them. "What is going on down here?" Bruce growled from the bottom of the stairs.

Dick glared back at Tim and Jason before returning his gaze to Bruce. "Tim's gone insane."

Tim snarled at Dick out of frustration. "I am not! It's not my fault that I happen to actually be LOGICAL!"

Jason held up his hands in the air defensively. "Don't look at me, they're both idiots."

Before Bruce could even respond, Dick stormed off, and then Tim got up and slowly walked away. Bruce glanced over at Jason who merely shrugged. "I told you…don't look at me."

Bruce walked over to the work table that had all of their printouts on it. "What have the three of you been doing?"

Jason quickly moved to grab the papers. "Fighting, bickering, and generally annoying each other."

Bruce grabbed a handful of the printouts before Jason could get them. "You know what I mean."

Jason smirked at him as he tried to grab the papers out of Bruce's hands. "What makes you think that, Bats?"

Bruce glared, but released the papers. "Jason, why are you here?"

"Me? I'm not." Jason tried to walk away, but Bruce blocked his path. Jason rolled his eyes as he sighed. "Look, it's nothing you need to worry about, okay?"

"I doubt that, Jason."

"Oh, come on, I haven't even killed anyone in…" Jason trailed off. The truth was, he didn't actually remember the last time he had killed.

"The time you've spent with Dick and Tim, I've noticed."

Jason raised an eyebrow at that. "Oh?"

"They're good for you."

Jason laughed. "You don't know what you're talking about, Bats."

"Is that what you wish to believe?"

Jason rolled his eyes. "Don't start with the psychoanalyzing. You really don't want to know what goes on inside my head."

"I do, Jason."

"No, Bruce, you don't. Now, do yourself a favor and just stay out of this."

Bruce glared at that. "I will find out what you three have been doing."

"Of course you will…you always do; but it might be prudent of you to stay out of it even when you do figure it out."

Bruce raised an eyebrow at Jason's wording. "Prudent of me? Tim has been rubbing off on you, I see."

"Shut up, just shut the fuck up. This is why I was hoping to avoid you. I'm not a part of your stupid little family. I'm not a part of anything. I'm only here because…" Jason trailed off again. Another truth he really didn't want to admit to was the fact that he really wasn't sure why he was here anymore.

"Why are you here, Jason?"

"I'm not…not anymore." Without another word Jason stormed out of the cave.

The End (for now)


	14. Chapter 14

It had been two weeks since the three of them had stormed out of the cave after their massive fight, and Jason was happy that he hadn't seen either of his so-called brothers or Bruce since then. He lounged on his bed with a beer, flipping through a magazine--he was bored, and it was there. Jason was just about ready to throw the magazine across the room when he heard a tapping sound at his door. He would have called it a knock…if he was used to people knocking on his door. Jason got up, and thought about grabbing one of his weapons, but how many people who wanted to kick your ass were nice enough to knock? He opened his door, reconsidered that grabbing a weapon thing, and then just stared blankly at his visitor. "What do you want?"

Tim sighed from the doorway. "Can I come in?"

Jason considered just shutting the door in his face, but if Jason was honest with himself, it wasn't necessarily Tim whom he had been avoiding for the last two weeks. And that was exactly what he had been doing. He had barely been going out ever since that night in the cave, in the hopes of limiting his interaction with the rest of the bat clan. "Sure, what the hell? Want a beer?"

Tim shook his head no as he walked passed Jason.

Jason watched him for a moment. "Well, you aren't limping anymore."

Tim raised an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"You were still limping around the last time that I saw you."

"Oh, yeah. Still sore, and the fingers and ribs are still pretty bad, but I've gotten back into working out...at least a little."

"So, I guess I should ask…how are things between you and Dick?"

"Oh, um…we haven't spoken…since…you know."

Jason was surprised by the answer. He was sure that the two of them would be back to being buddy buddy by now. "Like at all?"

Tim shook his head ruefully. "Not a word."

"How the hell have you two gone two weeks without saying a word to each other? I mean, you I can understand--you're quiet to begin with, but Dick? He never shuts up."

"Yeah, well, every time I walk into a room, he gives me this weird 'how could you' look and just walks out. It's to the point now that I check to see if he's in a room before I walk in, and if he is I try to just find a different place to be."

"Damn…"

"Yeah, but um…why do you care?"

Jason shrugged. "I don't know…seemed like the thing to ask."

Tim's gaze fell to the floor. He wasn't really sure what answer he had expected, but that certainly wasn't it. "Oh…"

"So why are you here anyway?"

"I want to deal with the Damian problem."

Jason sighed as he returned to his bedroom to grab his half finished beer. "If this is the part where you tell me we all need to put aside our differences and work together, I think you need to go tell Dickie bird that crap."

Tim shook his head. "I wasn't going to say anything like that."

"Then what were you going to say?"

"Bruce has gotten increasingly nosier, and it's not going to matter to him what Damian actually is, and Dick's too busy being angry to help, and I'm really sick of that kid trying to kill me."

"I take it that something else happened."

"Well, after he finished bragging about how he nearly killed me more than once, he tried to drop a 50 lb sandbag on my head."

Jason scrunched up his face in disgust at the mental image that induced. "Ouch."

"Yeah, and Dick just stood there and watched."

"Talk about adding insult to injury."

"Yeah, so I figure the sooner we deal with this…problem, the better."

Jason took a long sip from his beer before continuing. "You know, dealing with the Damian…are we calling it a threat?" At Tim's nod, Jason continued. "Dealing with the Damian threat won't fix what happened in the cave two weeks ago."

"No, it won't, but I'll be far more willing to talk about it once I don't have to constantly watch my back."

"I assume that you have a new plan, since it's just going to be the two of us."

"Yeah, about that…" Tim trailed off. The truth was, he was still working on the new plan.

"Oh, no, don't tell me you've involved someone else."

"No, who else would I trust? Dick's being…well Dick, and everyone else is too…whatever…to see what's really going on."

"First off, you trust me? Really? And second, Dick isn't being Dick he's being _a _dick."

Tim rolled his eyes at Jason's typical response about their older brother. "I trust you as much as I trust anyone else, I guess."

Jason laughed at that. "I'm sure that just means that you don't trust anyone."

"Think that's part of the reason that Dick's being…" Tim trailed off not really sure what he wanted to say.

"I wouldn't worry about Dick too much. He's got a way of acting like an ass, and then apologizing until you get sick of it."

Tim dropped his gaze to the floor once more. "Maybe…"

Jason could tell from Tim's sad, kicked puppy expression that they definitely needed to change the subject. "So, do you have a new plan, or not?"

"I'm still working on the finer details, but I think I've come up with something that might work."

Jason raised an eyebrow at him out of skepticism. "Oh?"

"Yeah, and it's the best time for it too because Bruce will be out of town this week. Dick convinced Bruce to let him teach Damian some of the trapeze stuff, so Damian will be left here to continue his training."

"Does that mean that Dick is still with us on the plan?"

"No, I'm still grounded due to injury, so Dick was just…"

Jason interrupted Tim with a low guttural growl before he could finish his sentence. "Showing off like the bastard that he is."

Tim chose to just ignore that. "Anyway, the same basic principle of our last plan still holds, and the no killing rule is still in effect, but we've got to change a few things, since it's just the two of us."

"Yeah…" Jason trailed off. He still wasn't sure about this, but he didn't see any reason to voice that opinion.

Tim didn't need Jason to say anything. He could tell that there was definitely some uneasiness coming from Jason. "What is it?"

"Huh?"

"I don't know. You look…worried."

Jason shook his head as if to clear it. "It's nothing."

"Um, if you have a concern, now would be the time to voice it."

"It's just something that Daisuke said."

Tim raised an eyebrow at him out of curiosity. "And what would that be?"

"He said that it was going to take all of us to deal with this threat."

Tim's eyebrows knitted together at that. "Meaning you me and Dick? Because there's no way Bruce is going to help us remove Damian from the bat clan."

Jason shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but now that it's just the two of us it's…unsettling to be going at this alone."

"Yeah, I know what you mean, but I'm sure we can handle it."

"Really, kid? Because I'm not."

"I don't think doubts are what we need right now, Jason."

Jason took another swig from his beer. "No, they aren't, but I have them all the same."

"So, do you think we should try to convince Dick to put aside his issues and help us?"

"See, I knew that put aside our differences crap would come out one way or another."

Tim glared at him. "I didn't say that."

Jason waved his hand as if to dismiss Tim's anger. "Yeah, yeah, whatever."

"Can we get back to the subject at hand? You seem extremely displeased with just the two of us going in, so what do you want to do?"

Jason shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know, but if Bruce is going to be out of town, then it needs to happen this week."

"Bruce leaves tomorrow. I'll try talking to Dick after Bruce is gone, and if that doesn't work…I guess we go it alone."

"I'll give you two days to try to convince Dick that this really is our only option. It'll give me some time to get some supplies, but I don't think we should waste anymore time."

Tim nodded once in the affirmative. "I agree. Once I know if Dick is in or out I'll send you the modified plan."

Jason started walking Tim to the door. "Sounds good, and hey, kid," he waited until Tim was facing him again, "don't forget to use that knife that I gave you if it comes to it."

Tim nodded hesitantly. "Let's hope that it doesn't come to that."

Jason smiled a little. "I was talking about with Dick."

Tim smirked. "What makes you think I wasn't?"

Jason didn't even get a chance to respond before Tim was out of the door. He smiled to himself slightly as he headed to his computer. The kid did have a sense of humor after all. Jason sighed to himself as he sat down in front of his computer. He hated stocking up on supplies, but he knew that, just like a lot of other things in his life, it was a necessary evil.

The End (for now)


	15. Chapter 15

Tim pushed open Dick's door and walked into his room without even giving Dick a chance to send him away. "Dick, we need to talk."

Dick looked up from what he was doing. "Are we dating?"

Tim glared at him. "I'm serious."

Dick sighed as he pushed himself away from his desk. "You always are." He paused for a moment before deciding on something to say. "So, how are you after the sandbag attack?"

"Oh, so now you care?"

"What? When did I not care?"

"Well, you just kinda stared at me when it happened."

Dick abruptly stood from his chair. "I was in shock. No one expects a 50 lb sandbag to drop from nowhere…especially in the cave."

Tim stared at him in disbelief. "Right."

"What? It's true."

Tim sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, that really doesn't matter right now."

"What? Of course it matters, especially if you don't believe me."

"No, it doesn't. At least, not right now, it doesn't."

Dick took a calming breath before returning to his seat. "Because there's something more important you want to talk about?"

Tim nodded once. "Yeah."

"Okay, shoot."

"As you know Bruce is out of town, and…"

Dick interrupted him before Tim could even finish talking. "If you're going to finish that sentence with something about Damian don't."

"But now is the perfect time to deal with him."

"Yeah, unfortunately I can't trust you to do the right thing here, Timmy."

Tim just stood there for a moment, shocked and angry. "WHAT?"

Dick stood once again as he folded his arms over his chest. "I think you've been spending too much time with Jason. I don't think I can trust you to…"

Tim held up his hand to stop him from continuing. "To what? Not kill? Fuck you, Dick! I was the one who went to Jason. I was the one who told him that the no kill rule is still in effect, and I'm the one trying to deal with Damian in a non-lethal way. Whereas, you're the one who just up and decided we weren't good enough to be around you anymore. You're the one who has been treating me like an enemy lately, and you're the one who has been spending an unhealthy amount of time with the demon. If anything, I'm the one who, at this juncture, shouldn't trust you."

"Treating you like an enemy? I have not!"

Tim folded his arms over his chest as he glared at Dick. "Oh, really? Because allies really act the way you have lately? And I'm not even going to mention brothers because I'm not even sure you want to be my brother anymore."

Dick's eyes widened at Tim's response. He hadn't realized that that was how Tim had felt. He was simply trying to process everything. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, I never said any of that."

"You really didn't have to."

Dick moved closer to Tim, and grasped both of Tim's shoulders in his hands. "Okay, I'm sorry; I just didn't know how to deal with everything, okay?"

Tim bit his lip as his eyes locked onto Dick's. "Do you really mean that?"

Dick nodded firmly. "Yes, yes, I do."

"Then help Jason and me take down Damian."

Dick immediately released Tim. "What?"

"Look, it's happening whether you help or not, but Jason's worried that if it's just the two of us, we'll fail--because Daisuke said it was going to take all of us, and that means you too, Dick."

"Tim…we can't just go off of what Jason and some meta said."

Tim rolled his eyes. "I thought we were passed this. There was a blood test and everything."

"Tim…" Dick trailed off not really sure what argument to give.

"No, you're missing the point here, Dick. JASON is worried! Come on, that's gotta set of sirens in your head or something."

Dick folded his arms over his chest again. "Yeah, sirens because he's manipulating you, and you're just falling for it."

"When did you start thinking that I don't have a brain in my head?"

Dick sighed as he ran his hand through his hair. "Tim, that's not it."

Tim raised an eyebrow at him out of skepticism. "Oh really? So, what is it? Because something is making you think that I don't actually process information."

"You're young, and a lot has happened to you, and you've lost…"

Tim held up a hand to stop him. "Don't! Don't you dare blame this on what I've lost! I'm not working with Jason because I'm young and lonely. I'm working with Jason because, right now, it's the right thing to do."

Dick shook his head ruefully. "No, Tim, working with Jason is never the right thing to do."

Tim threw his hands into the air out of frustration. "So, you're honestly going to let your own feelings about him cloud your judgment?"

Dick folded his arms over his chest once again. "I'm not the one with the clouded judgment here, Timmy."

Tim sighed as he balled his hands into fists. "Look, I feel as though I should just tell you this now. Jason gave me two days to try and convince you to help us. After that we're going it alone and whatever happens happens. I suggest that you decide which side you're on here, because I'm not going to let you stop us." Before Dick could respond, Tim was gone.

The End (until next time)


	16. Chapter 16

Jason had gotten all of the supplies that they needed, and he was quite pleased with himself that he had managed to get everything in such a short time. Tim had yet to send him the modified plan, but Jason couldn't really be annoyed with him for that. After all, he had given Tim one more day to try to talk Dick into helping them. Jason really didn't think that an entire year would be enough time to talk Dick into anything, but it seemed like something that would get the kid to really focus on the task at hand, so Jason went with it.

He clung to the outside of Tim's bedroom window, just staring at him as he slept, and nearly laughed when he saw that the kid frowned, even in his sleep. Jason watched as Tim's forehead creased even more in his sleep, and took the time to wonder what nightmare he was having. He just gazed blankly at Tim when his head started to jerk from side to side. After a few moments, Tim bolted upright, looked around his room, and then slowed his breathing. Jason continued to watch the entire show, slightly annoyed that Tim hadn't even gasped when he woke up. Jason found that he was actually a little bit jealous of the fact that Tim had clearly taught himself not to scream, or really make any noise, when he had a nightmare. And that just seemed wrong--because even Jason hadn't managed to force himself to be completely silent when certain nightmares hit him.

Before he consciously knew what he was doing, Jason picked the lock on Tim's window and slipped inside. If the kid noticed him, he didn't give any indication of it. "What's up, kid?"

Tim's head snapped to the side, but Jason couldn't make out his expression in the dark. "What are you doing here?"

Jason shrugged lazily. "I just wanted to see how your talk with Dickie bird was going?"

Tim reached over and turned on his light. "Well, we actually managed to say more than two words to each other, but it didn't really go well."

Jason couldn't help but smile at that. He liked the fact that Tim wasn't comfortable with being in the dark around him, but something told him that that was probably just because Tim wanted to actually see and analyze his expressions. Jason didn't know why, but that voice in his head sounded an awful lot like Dick's, and it was aggravating him. Jason mentally shook his head, and tried to focus on the conversation. "Well, you know, there's always an opening on my side of the fence."

Tim glared slightly at that. "I'm not like you."

"Sure, kid, sure."

Tim's glare only intensified. "I'm not."

"I never said that you were."

Tim's gaze fell to the floor suddenly. "Dick wouldn't agree with that."

Jason folded his arms over his chest. "That's because Dick's an ass, and can't see what's right in front of him."

Tim raised an eyebrow at that. "Oh?"

Jason smirked as he started walking around Tim's room. He still wasn't comfortable with how empty it seemed. "You don't have the backbone to do what I do."

Tim shook his head, but Jason could tell that he was keeping his eyes focused on him the entire time. Clearly, the kid wasn't comfortable with Jason being in his room, and Jason found that to be very interesting. "That, or I'm actually intelligent enough to see how flawed what you do is."

"Hey, you said that you saw the appeal."

"I do see why it's appealing to you, but it's still flawed."

Jason folded his arms over his chest again. "You know, Dick may not have taken it so hard had you told him that."

"I'd probably care more if someone hadn't woken me up this early in the morning, Jason." Tim glared at him harshly.

Jason rolled his eyes. "Nice try at deflecting there, kid, but I was here early enough to see that you woke up on your own."

Jason had expected Tim's eyes to at least widen or something, but he couldn't say that he was actually surprised that the kid just stared at him blankly. "Good to know that you creep around outside of people's bedroom windows when you've got nothing to do."

Jason smirked as he sat down on Tim's bed, and watched as Tim crawled away from him to lean against the headboard. "I'm no guiltier of creeping around than you are, stalker boy."

Tim pulled himself into a ball to give Jason more room, and blushed slightly at his stalker comment, but didn't say anything about it. "Is there a reason that you're here?"

Jason shrugged lazily, and looked at him as though it should be obvious. "I figured we could kick Dick's ass into submission together."

Tim shook his head at that. "I don't see how having you there could possibly make a difference, but after our talk earlier I'm willing to go with it."

Jason whistled as he leaned back to lie down on Tim's bed. "So, it really went that bad, huh?"

Tim curled up into an even tighter ball than he was already in. "Well, no punches were thrown, if that's what you mean."

Jason turned over onto his stomach so that he could look at Tim fully. "You know, you don't have to do that."

Tim raised an eyebrow at him out of confusion. "Do what?"

"Curl into a little ball of fear. I'm not going to attack you…not here at least."

Tim rolled his eyes. "I don't fear you, Jason. That would be like fearing an overzealous puppy. I was merely trying to make more room for you."

"Well, stop it. I keep seeing movement out of the corner of my eye, and it's fucking with my head."

"Is it really possible to fuck with your head anymore than it's already been fucked with?"

Jason growled as he pounced onto Tim. "You know, you're really annoying."

"I thought you said that you wouldn't attack me here." Jason had a feeling that if he wasn't pinning Tim's arms down, the kid probably would have had them crossed over his chest.

Jason thought about it for a moment, and then released Tim. "You're right. I'll wait until we're in the cave, and we both have weapons. It'll be more fun."

Tim shook his head again. "So, basically, that's your way of telling me to get dressed and meet you in the cave for a spar, right?"

Jason nodded once, and then walked out of the room. Tim sighed as he started getting dressed. He guessed that a bored Jason looking for a spar was better than a bored Jason looking for an actual fight. Not that a spar with Jason was very different from an actual fight, but at least Tim knew that Jason wouldn't be actively trying to kill him. Tim knew that if anything happened during the course of their spar due to his lack of being fully awake and caffeinated then that was just his fault; and it wasn't as though Jason was going to shed a tear over it.

Tim walked into the cave fully expecting to see Jason on the mats ready and waiting for him, and he wasn't disappointed. Tim took a few moments to stretch before turning back to Jason. "Couldn't you have just read a book or something?" Tim yawned before going over and grabbing one of the practice staffs. He had a feeling from the look in Jason's eyes that he was going to need it.

Jason smirked as he got ready for Tim. "Oh, but baby bird, this is so much better than any book."

Tim wasn't really sure why Jason was waiting for him to make the first move, but he appreciated it all the same. Once he felt awake enough to do more than fall onto his posterior Tim stepped onto the mats. He took another moment to prepare himself before he started moving. He swept at Jason's legs half-heartedly with his staff--testing to see how awake Jason was. Jason easily jumped over the pathetic attempted sweep, and dropped into a crouch before he spun out to kick at Tim's legs. Tim dodged the kick easily with a back flip, and then brought the staff around aiming for Jason's ribs. Jason ducked out of the way of the staff, and rolled closer to Tim. He grabbed both of Tim's feet and pulled them out from under him. Tim landed on his backside with a thump. The moment his back hit the mat, Tim rolled and moved into a crouch with his staff held in front of him. Tim knew that the only reason that he was able to move away before Jason effectively pinned him to the ground was because Jason wanted a longer spar.

Jason laughed at him from the other side of the mats. "You must be really out of it, little bird."

Tim shook his head as if to clear it. "Still waking up, apparently."

Jason took a step closer, and Tim moved out of his crouch in order to back away. The expression on Jason's face told him that this spar had just gotten a whole lot more serious, not to mention dangerous. Before Tim had a chance to consider where this was going, Jason pulled two of his throwing knives out. Jason's face got an evil gleam to it, but he had already hesitated long enough to give Tim the time he needed to get his brain to function, and to get his body to do what it was told. He knew that if it wasn't for the fact that Jason was having fun right now, Tim would have never been given the time to adjust to the new dynamic of the fight. Tim backed up another half step, and prepared himself to dodge one knife, and deflect the other. Tim was silently grateful that he had at least been awake enough to choose the staff before the spar had started. This would have been quite difficult with his mind so sluggish if he was doing this hand to knife.

Jason had clearly decided that he had waited long enough and moved forward in a flurry of movement. He deliberately slashed at the staff with one knife, as a distraction and moved his other knife toward Tim's side. Tim knew that the first strike was going for the staff by the angle of Jason's slash, so he focused more on the blade coming towards his left side. He deflected the blade with his staff before he spun away. Jason grinned fiercely at the block strike and moved in for another attack.

Tim expected Jason to strike with both knives directly at him this time--completely ignoring the staff, so he held his staff more loosely in order to spin it. This was apparently what Jason had wanted him to do; before Tim knew what was happening, his staff had been kicked out of his hands, and he hit the mat with a loud smack. Jason was on top of him pinning him to the ground with one of the blades held to his throat.

"What the hell is going on down here?" Neither one of them moved an inch as both of their gazes fell upon Dick, who was standing at the edge of the mats glaring at them.

"Nothing." They both spoke in unison.

Dick's glare only intensified. "This really doesn't look like nothing."

Tim tried to sit up a little, but Jason still had yet to remove the knife from his throat. "We were just sparring."

Dick folded his arms over his chest. "Yeah, right. What the hell are you doing awake at this hour anyway, Tim? And Jason, why are you here?"

Jason finally pulled his knife away from Tim's throat and spun around to face Dick fully. "To see you, actually."

Dick's eyebrow rose in surprise. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah, I wanted to see if baby bird here was able to convince you to help us."

Dick wasn't happy with Jason using the nickname for Tim, but decided to just let it go. "I don't see any reason to help you, Jason."

"Well, maybe if your head wasn't so far up your ass you'd be able to, Dick." Jason spat the last word out with venom.

Dick rolled his eyes as he threw his hands into the air. "Oh, screw you, Jason. You know what? This is why no one ever wants be around you."

Jason glared at him bitterly. "Sounds like you're projecting to me, Dickie bird."

Tim got between the two of them before punches could be thrown. "Can you just stop? Both of you, please just stop." Both of them stopped to stare at Tim. Once Tim was certain that he had their full attention he continued. "Every time we're around each other, one or more of us has to act like an ass. Can't we all just…"

Jason held up a hand to stop him. "If you're about to say get along, the answer is no, and hell fucking no."

Tim shook his head. "I was going to say shut up and deal."

Jason shrugged lazily. "Deal? Maybe, but only if Dick decides to shut up."

Dick glared at Jason as he folded his arms over his chest. "Oh, look who's talking, jerk of the fucking year."

"Oh, I'm the jerk? I'm not the one who watched the kid nearly get taken out by that other brat, and just stood there."

Dick threw his hands in the air out of frustration. "How was I supposed to know that a sandbag was going to fall out of nowhere?"

Jason rolled his eyes at Dick's response. "Oh, I don't know maybe because you left the evil little monster unattended for more than five seconds and you should just assume something bad is going to happen as a result of that."

Tim pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to calm down, but he couldn't block out their squabbling. "Enough! Both of you! That's enough! God, you're like a bunch of little old ladies bickering back and forth. It doesn't matter. It's all completely irrelevant."

Dick turned his attention back to Tim. "What do you mean it's irrelevant?"

Tim rolled his eyes. "It doesn't matter. None of it does. We have to deal with the Damian problem. Now, you can either help us or not. I don't care at this point; but we're going to do this. So just give us a frickin' answer so we can move on and work to eliminate this problem."

"Eliminate this problem?" Dick stared at him wide-eyed. "Tim, I'm a little worried with that phrasing."

Tim glared at him harshly. "I already told both of you that killing Damian isn't on my agenda. So, what's your answer, Dick? Are you going to help us, or not?"

"I…" Dick trailed off as his gaze fell to the floor. "I don't think I can…not this time, Timmy. I'm sorry."

Tim's face was completely expressionless when he spoke. "Fine, then. I guess we're doing this alone, Jason."

Jason nodded as he led Tim out of the cave. "I always did like alone better, Tim. I always found that it worked better."

The two of them walked out of the cave without another word to Dick.

The end (for now)


	17. Chapter 17

The three of them stood on one of the better lit rooftops in Gotham. Tim and Jason had been smart enough to set up cameras ahead of time, presumably so that they wouldn't have to explain their actions to Bruce too much when he got back. They had lured Damian there by sending him an email from Bruce's personal account, telling him that Bruce had wanted him to stake out the building next to it. Damian seemed to be rather gullible for someone who was supposed to be so dangerous, but that only worked in their favor. That part of the plan, at least, had been the same as the plan that they had originally hatched with Dick but things had gotten a little dicey after that. For starters, due to the fact that there were only two of them, they were unable to surround Damian the way they had originally wanted to, but that wasn't really a problem, at least not at first.

"We know what you are." Tim yelled out across the rooftop.

Damian folded his arms over his chest. "And what, pray tell, am I?"

It was obvious that Jason was rolling his eyes behind his hood. "A stupid demon brat who has been causing a lot of trouble that we don't need."

Damian suddenly stood up straighter. "I am the only…"

Tim held up a hand to stop that obnoxious speech. "I don't want to hear it. You're a Rackenor demon. You come from Zandaria, and you're going back there. I'm so over dealing with this crap."

Jason turned towards Tim. "You know, sharing that you knew all of that would have been considered helpful."

Tim shrugged to Jason. "It wasn't relevant at the time." He then turned back to Damian. "This ends here."

The three of them glared at each other as they prepared to attack at any second. Tim and Jason moved in to take down Damian; but before either of them could move more than three steps, the entire rooftop exploded. There was a flash of light, and then all that was left was the roof burning. The flames were so high and so bright that he wasn't really sure how anyone could have survived being anywhere near the roof, let alone on it at the time. He took a few breaths, and tried to calm himself.

How the hell everything had gone so completely wrong, none of them really knew. Dick sat staring at the screen blankly as he watched it unfold once again. He had already watched the feed fourteen times already, but it hadn't helped any. He still had an infinite number of questions about what the hell had happened, and very few people he could talk to about it.

They were alive. Dick had that going for him, even though neither Jason nor Tim had talked to him since they left the night that he told them he wasn't helping them. Babs had been kind enough to send him the feed and to let him know that they were in hiding together and alive. As far as Damian was concerned, Dick was pretty sure he had no idea that Dick knew anything. He felt like that was probably for the best until he figured out what the hell had happened.

Sighing to himself, Dick did the only thing that he could at this moment. "O, I need to know where they are."

"I can't tell you that. It's safer for everyone if we have someone close to D, and he can't know where the other two are."

Dick hung his head. It didn't matter that he knew that already. "I need to know that they're okay. This is my fault."

He could hear tapping in the background, clearly she was multitasking. "I really don't think this is your fault, Dick; and they're alive--that's all I can tell you right now."

Dick's hand slammed down on the desk in front of him. "This is my fault! I had a chance to help them, and I didn't."

She kept her voice steady, but he could tell that she had stopped whatever else she had been doing. "Had you helped them, you would have been injured, too, and we wouldn't have someone on the inside. Besides, you need to keep Bruce occupied until we figure out what exactly happened on that rooftop. Unfortunately, the feed that I sent you is all that I have. It's only from one camera; none of the others survived the blasts."

Dick took a deep breath and tried to calm down. "Have you talked to either of the other two yet?"

He could tell that she was shaking her head from the tone of her voice. "No, I told them to patch each other up and get some rest. I'm trying to see what I can get from my end in the mean time."

Dick held his head in his hands. "I can't do this. I want to see them."

"I know, but that's just not possible right now."

"Can't we construct a cover operation or something? It's really bothering me that I'm stuck here, and have no idea how they are."

She sighed, and he couldn't help but smile a little. He knew that he was wearing down her resolve. "I'll see what I can do, but I make no promises, FBW."

Dick's smile brightened. "That's all that I ask." He cut the connection, and then made sure no one could tell what he had been doing before he returned upstairs.

Hanging around Damian and pretending nothing was wrong was hard, but, luckily for Dick, Damian had a tendency to make scowling and glaring at him completely natural and acceptable behavior. Bruce had come home early when he had heard about the 'accident.' Dick wasn't exactly sure what Babs had told him, or why Damian was keeping his mouth shut about it, but Dick knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He sat at the dinning room table across from Damian, trying to keep his face expressionless as Damian talked to Bruce about the 'ruffians' who had attacked him. Dick kept his head down as he pushed his vegetables around his plate. He really envied Tim's ability to just go blank right now. Dick mentally shook his head at the thought. Thinking about Tim or Jason wasn't going to help him right now; in fact, it made it twice as hard not to just get up and track them down himself.

Dick was about to make an excuse about not feeling well, but before he could, his cell phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket, and then just stared at the number for a moment. It wasn't one that he recognized, but it wasn't as though that was anything new, especially lately. Dick pushed away from the table and started to head outside as he answered the phone. "Hello?"

Dick could hear typing before any other sound, and he knew immediately who he was talking to. "Alright, former boy wonder, I've talked to the other two and if you can get away I can have them meet you somewhere safe."

Dick blinked for a few seconds trying to process what she had just said. He knew that Babs was good, but he honestly didn't think a few hours would get him what he had wanted. "Yeah, of course…wait. They were willing to meet me?"

She sighed, but Dick could tell it was more to herself than to him. "Look, I'm not going to lie. It took some convincing, but they're willing. So, go make up some excuse to leave, and then I'll call you back and give you directions."

Dick smiled at that. "You're the best."

"Don't I know it?" He could tell that she was smirking just from her tone. "Now, go."

He hung up, and returned to the dinning room. "I'm sorry to have to cut this short, but I've got a friend that needs some help. It shouldn't take too long."

Bruce stared at him for a moment, but didn't say anything. Dick really wanted to shift, or move, or do something, but he forced himself to stand still. When Bruce finally spoke all that was said was, "Be careful."

Dick nodded, and had to force himself not to run to his bike. He wasn't even two minutes away from the manor when Babs contacted him again. "Don't speed too much. We don't want them to get too suspicious, and we both know Bruce already is."

Dick rolled his eyes, but reduced his speed slightly anyway. "Yeah, yeah, just tell me where to go."

"Warehouse district," was all that she said.

Dick wanted to increase his speed again, especially now that he had a destination, but he knew better. "Any particular place in the warehouse district?"

"I'll let you know when you get closer." He could tell that she was glaring just from her voice.

Forty-five minutes later Dick silently crept into one of the less dilapidated warehouses that Jason had apparently turned into his own satellite cave, and Dick had to admit that he was actually impressed with the amount of security Jason had put into the place. He was just about to announce his presence when he heard Jason's voice. "Ouch! Watch what the hell you're doing."

Dick could hear Tim's sigh loud and clear, and he was fairly certain that the kid was rolling his eyes. "I am watching what I'm doing. If you would stop moving, this wouldn't be nearly as difficult."

"It's not my fault you aren't very good at this."

Dick could tell from Tim's tone that he was glaring. "I had no problems doing this while you were unconscious."

"What's your point?"

"My point is, if you hadn't ripped open your stitches, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Dick stepped out of the shadows where he was hiding to see Tim stitching up a long nasty gash on Jason's chest. "What happened?"

Tim didn't look up from his work. "Do you mean with Damian, or do you mean with Jason right now?"

Dick stared at him for a moment as he watched Tim work with Alfred like precision. "Um, both, I guess."

Tim moved Jason closer to the light so that he could see what he was doing better. "Well, all I can tell you is that one moment we were getting ready to tackle the little demon, and then all of a sudden Damian's eyes started to glow red. There was a flash, and suddenly there was a red skinned, black horned, wrinkly demon standing before us. Then he whispered something, and the next thing we knew, _bam!_ The entire frickin' roof blew up. We had enough time to shield ourselves from the worst of it, but there really is only so much a cape can do against being thrown from a rooftop."

Dick grimaced as images from the video of it flashed through his mind. "Ouch," was all that he could think to say.

Tim nodded as he waited for Jason to stop moving. "Yeah, and then Jason pulled a you and decided that the rooftop express was the best way to go despite having a five inch laceration going down his pectoral that was just recently stitched up."

Jason glared down at Tim before turning his fierce gaze on Dick. "What baby bird means to say is that a certain asshole decided to blow up the rooftop we were on."

Tim tsked at him as he continued working. "That was before you reopened it."

"Yeah, well it wouldn't have happened in the first place had _someone _been there to help us from the beginning." Jason's glare at Dick only intensified with his words.

Tim sighed again as he finished sewing up Jason's chest, and began cleaning up the supplies he had used. "Jason, we talked about this, and you promised that you weren't going to say anything like that."

Jason pulled on his shirt very carefully. "Yeah, well, I lied. Get use to it."

Tim shook his head. "Can we please not do this right now? I still have to fix that gash on your leg."

"Don't worry about it. I can fix my own damn leg, and I can bitch Dickie bird out at the same time. Jason smirked as he pulled off his bloody jeans, so that he could start cleaning the wound on his thigh. "Damn, I love multitasking."

Tim was about to say something, but Dick cut him off. "Tim, don't, Jason's right. I should have been there. I should have helped you guys when you asked for my help, and I have every intention of going after that son of a bitch with you guys."

Tim handed Jason the antiseptic that he would need to clean the cut on his leg before turning back to Dick. "You're just saying that because you feel guilty."

It was the first time that Tim had actually looked at Dick since he came in, and the kid looked awful. There were cuts and bruises all over him and he looked exhausted. Jason hadn't looked much better, but Jason had a tendency to let anger cover any and all tiredness that he was feeling. "Well, yeah, of course I feel guilty, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't help you guys, or that I'm not going to."

Tim folded his arms over his chest. "I don't think that guilt should be a motive for helping us."

Dick was about to defend his reason for wanting to take down Damian, but was interrupted by Jason's hiss of pain when Tim jarred his leg. "Hey, I don't give a damn about his reason for helping. I just want that goddamn asshole taken down." Tim didn't respond as he grabbed the needle that Jason had been fiddling with for the last five minutes. "I was getting it." At Tim's raised eyebrow, Jason continued. "But if you want to thread it that's fine by me."

Tim didn't say anything as he threaded the needle and began to suture the slash on Jason's right thigh. "Dick, you do realize you're basically going to have to play a double agent here. We can't go back to the manor and you've gotta make it seem like you want nothing to do with us when you're around Damian. Not to mention, that you have to make sure that Bruce is kept so far out of the loop that he's practically on Pluto."

Dick nodded. That part of the plan had been obvious since the moment Dick saw the footage of what had happened. "Yeah, yeah, I know. It's not like I've never done an undercover assignment before."

Tim shook his head at him. "This isn't like any other undercover assignment."

Jason turned to face Dick. "The kid's right. You've gotta remember that we're hiding from the mother fucking Batman here."

Dick sighed as he rubbed his temples. "I know, I know, okay. This sucks, I mean, really, really, sucks."

Tim paused in what he was doing to focus on Dick. "Are you sure you can do this? I mean, you and Bruce are extremely close. This wouldn't be easy for the average person; add in the fact that he only has to glance at part of your face to know that something is up, and you're treading very dangerous waters here."

Dick's shoulders slumped at that. It wasn't as though he hadn't already considered that this was going to be one of the most difficult things he ever had to do, but Tim was right. This wasn't like anything else he had ever even attempted before, and Bruce could read him like an open book. "How obvious would it be if I just avoided him?"

Tim glared at him before returning to work on Jason's leg. "That is not even remotely close to a plan, and if you aren't going to take this seriously, then…"

Before Tim could finish, Dick silenced him with a wave of his hand. "I know, I know, I'm sorry. It's just…this isn't easy."

Jason scoffed at that. "No fucking kidding it isn't easy. If it was easy, we wouldn't be sitting here stitching me up, now would we?"

Tim rolled his eyes at Jason's comment. "Be nice, some of us actually like other people."

Jason laughed at that. "Kid, if I was nice, I'd be dead."

Tim smirked slightly as he finished with Jason's leg and started putting the first aid supplies away. "Somehow, I don't think that's an exaggeration."

Jason sighed as he pulled on his pants. "This means I'm going to have to sit through another three hours of discussion on plans, doesn't it?"

Tim shrugged lazily. "Well, we've officially lost the element of surprise. Even with Dick giving us a heads up on where Damian will be, he knows we're not going to give up so easily, so he'll definitely be on guard. Never mind the fact that Bruce has most likely decided to increase security around Damian."

Jason stood up and stretched slightly, making sure that he didn't reopen his stitches. "So, what does that mean as far as plans go?"

Tim sighed to himself. "It means that this just got about ten degrees more difficult."

Jason rolled his eyes. "Great, because it was just so easy before."

The End (for now)


	18. Chapter 18

Bruce knew when he was getting the runaround from his family. Not just that, but he knew when he was being given the runaround because they wanted to surprise him, either with something good or something bad, and he knew that, this time it was because of something bad--something really bad, if the current set of circumstances were anything to go by. It didn't matter that everyone seemed to have an excuse for their behavior lately. Something was going on, and he was going to find out what.

Dick was more active than normal. He always had this underlying itch to move. Even when he was standing still, Dick's entire posture always screamed that he wanted to be moving. Over the years, he had learned to keep that general want of motion from showing in his body language…mostly; but, lately it was like watching a much younger Dick Grayson, one who hadn't learned how to sit still yet. It would have made Bruce smile if he hadn't known that the reason for Dick's sudden loss of control was due more to nervousness about something than joy. Whatever was going on was making Dick want to spend as little time around him as possible, and if it wasn't for how the rest of them were acting, Bruce would actually be sitting here contemplating whether he had done something to make Dick act that way. But as it stood, Dick wasn't the only one acting odd lately.

Damian had seemed to be, dare he think it, clingy. At first, Bruce thought it was a good thing that the boy seemed to want to spend time with him, but lately it was just getting annoying. No one wanted to spend that much time around him unless they had a reason to. And that was the thing that really got Bruce thinking that something was wrong. Damian didn't just want to spend time with Batman, he wanted to spend time with Brucie, too. None of them; Tim, Jason, or Dick ever wanted to spend time with Brucie. Hell, if he could get away with it, Bruce wouldn't spend any of his time as Brucie. Sometimes that particular guise could be more draining than a night tangling with Joker, Harley, and Ivy all at once ever could be. Bruce had to admit that if he thought about it, Damian seemed to always be with him no matter what mask he was wearing; and Damian always wore this self-satisfied smirk when he was around Bruce. It was getting to be a little unnerving.

Then there was everything that was going on with Jason, Tim, and Oracle. Babs had told him that Jason and Tim were on a secret mission for her, but that didn't make any sense. Bruce always knew about every mission, secret or not. He made it his business to know, and that was overlooking the fact that Jason is, well, Jason. Bruce didn't really want to even think about Jason in any context beyond the current circumstances, because it was just too much to deal with at that moment. So he decided to focus on the fact that Jason was probably one of the last people Tim would ever want to work with. It didn't matter that Tim would work with whomever he had to in order to get a job done. Bruce knew that no one in their right mind would pair the two of them up if they had another option, and Oracle always had plenty of other options. Bruce was still working on whether she was in her right mind, but it wasn't like he could run test on her without certain people getting upset about it. Then there was the fact that he hadn't been able to find anything about this so-called secret mission, which wasn't making him any less suspicious, despite the fact that that was often just Oracle's way of reasserting that she was able to keep him out of her systems, or so she thought. He did, however, have to give her some credit. It had been three hours and he still hadn't found anything. She clearly was using all of her talents on this one, which just intrigued him more.

Bruce was starting to get agitated. He had checked all of their safe houses, satellite caves, and anywhere else two of his people might be hiding for a mission and came up with nothing. He didn't see any reason that they would be relying on Jason for a safe house unless the mission involved hiding from him, which would make sense if it was just Jason, but the fact that Tim was involved was making it extremely difficult for him to form a theory on what was happening. Bruce didn't see any reason for Dick or Barbara to hide it from him if Tim had decided to follow Jason's path. Unless, of course, they were worried about his reaction, but he had already checked all of the news feeds. He couldn't find anything so far that pointed to any type of Red Hood activity, and certainly nothing that indicated Red Hood had an assistant, which should have been reassuring, but Bruce hadn't found any traces of Jason or Tim at all--which could have meant that Jason was taking time off to train Tim for his own purposes.

Bruce didn't want to believe that Tim would follow Jason, but he knew better than to hope for such things. After all, there was a reason that he planned for every contingency, and Bruce knew that if Tim had decided to go down that road, then he would need one hell of a plan to deal with it. He was getting annoyed again. Any plan that he could possibly hope to work in that scenario would most likely involve Dick being on his side, not to mention Oracle. And if Tim had decided to take Jason's work to a whole new level--there was hardly ever a time that Tim didn't exceed expectations in everything that he did, and Bruce was sure that this would be no different--then he would most likely need anyone Oracle could spare, as well. Bruce decided it was best to get what information he could out of Dick about the entire situation before he made a move.

He knew that Dick had always been loyal to him, even when he really shouldn't have been, but Bruce didn't know what side Dick would take in a battle between him and Tim. Tim was his little brother, and while that always made Bruce happy, it also made things even more complicated if what he suspected was true. Dick would let his emotions get in the way. He always did, which would just make this all far more chaotic in the end.

Bruce thought about talking to Dick about his concerns. He thought that, maybe, he could manage to discuss what he thought was going on in a mature fashion. It was a decent line of thinking; after all, if he was wrong, Dick would surely jump at the chance to set him right, (and god did he hope he was wrong) but if he was right, things could get really dicey between the two of them. However, either way he would know what was going on, and certainly that was better than just sitting here in the dark--both figuratively and literally. He didn't want to admit it, but he was clearly out of the loop on this one, and Batman hated being out of the loop.

Bruce ground his teeth as he headed upstairs. It was time to get to the bottom of this. He wasn't the least bit surprised when he found Dick in the kitchen stealing cookies off of the tray that, judging by the heat of the room, Alfred had just pulled out of the oven not too long again. Dick was happily munching on his stolen treat when he turned to face Bruce. "What's up?" Dick asked around a mouthful of cookie.

Part of Bruce wanted to smile at him, but another part was too frustrated to really appreciate the childish antics of his eldest adopted son. Bruce tried to remember the plan he had formed in the cave. It was something about talking to Dick calmly and rationally about his fears of Tim's latest activities with Jason, but the moment that the thought of Tim spending extensive amounts of time with Jason came into his head, the Bat took over and any possibility of this conversation being rational went out the window. Why talk about fears when he could treat this conversation like a thug on the street and punch it right in the face? "Has Tim decided to join Jason?"

Dick's eyes widened and his mouth hung open for a long moment before he recovered from the shock of that question. "What on earth would make you think that?"

Bruce noted that Dick wasn't denying it. "Answer the question."

"If you're asking if Tim has decided to start killing, I'm going to have to say not that I know of."

Bruce took a moment to dissect that sentence. The words 'going to have to say' and 'not that I know of' were like flashing red lights to him. "But he is on Jason's side."

Dick noticed how that wasn't a question, and he wasn't really sure what this conversation was about. He knew that assuming anything right now would either blow his whole plan with Jason and Tim to smithereens, or end with everyone being confused. "On Jason's side of what?"

Bruce glared at him. Clearly, Dick was attempting to hide something. "The job."

Dick was racking his brain trying to figure out something to say. It was a very real possibility that Bruce had known about that fight in the cave between the three of them before Tim and Jason had gone after Damian, and chose just now to bring it up. It was also plausible that Bruce knew nothing about it and was talking about something else entirely. Dick knew he was treading very dangerous water right now. He tried to think of what Tim would do in this situation, because Dick didn't think that joking around would be a good idea. Dick sighed to himself. Tim would deny everything, and Dick hoped that it would work in this instance. "I assure you, I don't have any idea what you're talking about. Tim's on a mission with Jason right now, but I can guarantee you that there will be no killing. Tim would never allow that to happen." He hoped. Dick internally winced at his last thought.

Bruce grunted as he walked away. Clearly, he wasn't going to get what he needed out of Dick. It was time to try hacking into Oracle's systems again.

The end (for now)


	19. Chapter 19

Bruce had to admit that he was impressed with all of them. It had taken him an infuriatingly large amount of time to find out where Tim and Jason were hiding. Oracle had hid the information well, but that was rarely enough to keep him from anything that he wanted. The security at their hideout was fairly impressive as well. Nothing that he couldn't break, but it did take him longer than he had originally suspected it would. However, the sheer amount of time that it took him to get into the warehouse just proved that Tim and Jason were, in fact, working together, and from the looks of it, without the help of the other bats. That only seemed to confirm his suspicions that, yes, Tim had chosen to follow Jason.

As he edged closer to the room, Bruce could hear voices up ahead. He quickly found the perfect place to crouch and watch. There was no reason to interrupt whatever they were doing until he had all of the information that he needed.

Jason growled low and feral. "Look, I'm only going to ask once, and then I'm just going to gut you like a fish. What the hell is the little freak planning?"

Bruce could see a man tied quite effectively to a chair in the middle of the room. He seemed far too calm for the situation at hand. "That is not something I can tell you."

Jason was about to punch the man when Tim stepped in front of him. "Jay, let me try."

Jason glared at him for a moment before gesturing to Tim to take over. Tim whirled around to face the man tied to the chair. "You said that you wanted us to stop this. You said that you wanted us to work together to keep whatever he's planning from happening. That didn't work, so tell us what he's planning. The more information that we have, the better prepared we are, and the better we can work to take him down."

The man shook his head. "I have already told you. He plans to destroy the world. What more do you need to know?"

Tim stood and folded his arms over his chest. "How does he plan to do that? You said that if we fail, it will happen. What kind of destroyed are we talking here? Nothing left? What is left isn't worth saving? Give us something to work with here."

The man turned his head away and said nothing.

Tim sighed. "Come on, Daisuke. You want to help us. You wouldn't have started all of this if you didn't want to help us."

Daisuke turned back to him. "Do you really think that lying to me will gain you the answers that you seek?"

Tim looked confused by his response. "Lying to you? What are you talking about? I haven't lied to you."

Daisuke scoffed at that. "Do not pretend with me, boy. I know you have read quite extensively about me. You know, beyond a doubt, that I have already seen what you've done. You said that you tried working together. That is a lie. It was just the two of you."

Tim looked as though he was about to explain when Jason jumped into the conversation. "Yeah, and we got our asses blown off a fucking roof, but thanks for your concern."

Daisuke glared at the two of them. "I told you what must be done to win. You did not listen. There are consequences to such."

Before Jason could say anything, Tim whirled on the man, pulling a knife--one that Bruce had never seen before--from seemingly nowhere. "Look, I don't give a damn about what happened on that roof. I just want to know what he's planning, when it happens, and how to stop it. I want to know how we avoid the rooftop incident again."

Jason smirked the moment Tim had pulled the knife. "Nice to see that you're using that." Jason gestured to the knife Tim was holding.

Tim shrugged. "It was a gift, and a useful one at that. Of course I use it, or at least keep it on me."

Jason actually smiled before turning back to Daisuke with a sneer. "Now, are you going to tell us what little bird here wants to know, or are we going to find out exactly how you came back from the dead and if you can do a repeat performance?"

Daisuke didn't seem impressed by Jason's threat, not even a little bit. "Are you still going on about that? It was an ancient technique I learned when I was still young. Not even death is permanent anymore."

Tim rolled his eyes. "Yeah, don't we know it? Anyway, that's all nice to know and all, but it still has nothing to do with the problem at hand."

"You already have the answers which you seek."

Jason tried to step around Tim. "Okay, that's it. We tried it your way, baby bird. Now it's my turn."

Tim held up a hand to stop Jason. "He's got a lot of pent up rage, you know? He really hates metas, especially metas that have already kicked his ass multiple times. I let him do whatever he wants, and your enhanced speed and ability to heal will mean nothing. I suggest you just tell us what we want to know. I mean, I'm good with just modifying the plan that I already have, but well, Jason? Jason isn't about plans."

Daisuke could tell that the only way to get them to see reason was to just give them enough information to make them focus. "His world is not what some would consider pleasant. He'll do anything to keep from going back. This world means nothing to him. It is simply an escape from his own. Given the chance he will turn this world into the most revolting place you can ever imagine, and instead of doing as I have previously advised you, the two of you are standing here wasting your time with me."

Tim could tell that Jason was getting ready to hit Daisuke. "You keep saying that. Wasting time…does that mean that whatever he's going to do is going to happen soon?"

Daisuke shook his head. "I do not know when anything I see will come to pass, but I do know that the visions always do if nothing is done to stop it from happening."

Tim nodded once firmly. "Thank you."

He was about to cut Daisuke free when Jason stopped him. "We still don't know how exactly we're supposed to stop this."

Tim raised an eyebrow at him. "We'll figure it out."

Jason was about to argue that they had already tried and failed, but Daisuke broke in. "You will first need to stop avoiding a certain member of your family before you can accomplish that."

Jason growled at him. "Not my fucking family."

Daisuke rolled his eyes at him. "I understand that you would rather act as a hurt animal in a cage two sizes too small than live as a house pet, but at some point, hardheaded one, you will need them just as much as they need you. And that time shall be upon you soon."

Jason glared at him. "What the hell does that mean?"

"You will learn in time, but now I must go, for you have a visitor."

Before either one of them could respond, the ropes were on the ground and Daisuke was gone. "I fucking hate metas." Jason spoke as he kicked over the chair.

Tim picked up the chair and sat it up right. "Calm down. We got enough out of him that we can work with this. Plus, now that I know vaguely how he came back from the dead, I can do more research on him in my spare time."

Jason raised an eyebrow at him. "You have spare time? I mean, between planning, updating security, reading, researching, training--don't think I haven't noticed you working with some of my finer weapons--and all of that other stuff that you do, I didn't think that you could possibly add anything else to your to-do list."

Tim shrugged. "I've got a lot of time on my hands, especially since I can't go back to the manor any time soon."

Jason clasped a hand onto Tim's shoulder. "It's okay. We'll deal with the Damian problem, and then everything will go back to normal."

That was all that Bruce needed to hear. He had proof now that they were working together, and against him and the rest of the family. "I can't let you do that." Batman spoke as he emerged from the shadows.

The two of them fell into fighting stances side by side the moment they heard him move. Jason glared at him and looked like he wanted to snarl, but stayed silent; while Tim, on the other hand, stood ready and waiting as always--just like Bruce had taught him. "I can only assume that you being here means that you know everything, and I'm sorry. I know how much this has to hurt you, but we can't let you stop us." Tim spoke with an overtone of remorse, but seemed firm in his decision.

Batman didn't say one word before leaping towards them. He knew that they both preferred to fight from a distance. They were both good at hand to hand combat, but with someone bigger and better than both of them it only made sense for them to want to be further away. The two of them spun away, as he had expected them to do. Tim already had his Bo staff in hand, and Jason's knives were out. Bruce was slightly surprised that he didn't see either of them holding a gun, but that didn't mean the fight couldn't head that way at any time.

Bruce noticed a silent conversation going on between the two of them, but he couldn't tell what it was about…what they were planning. He knew that Jason was most likely going to be the first one to turn lethal, so he tried to keep most of his attention on him, but Bruce knew better than to overlook or underestimate Tim. Tim moved in his peripheral vision, and began speaking again. Bruce knew it was probably just to distract him. He knew that he needed to keep his focus on both of them, but probably more on Jason.

Tim knew better than to think that either of them had a chance against Bruce, especially since he seemed determined to protect the demon spawn, despite him being just that…a demon. "Bruce, come on. You can't honestly tell me that he's worth this. You have to know what he really is. You have to know that Damian will only destroy everything."

That struck something in Bruce. He couldn't believe it. "You're honestly telling me that that's why you've decided to follow Jason?"

Tim wanted to let his eyebrows furrow at that, but kept his facial expression impassive. "This wasn't Jason's idea. It was all my plan. I came up with it. I'm the one who knew when and how to execute it. Sure, it failed--but that was due to unforeseen circumstances--which doesn't mean anything, because it was still my plan. This isn't about Jason…not anymore, at least not solely about him."

Before Bruce could respond, Jason moved to jump on top of him, but Bruce spun before Jason could get hold of him. The two of them grabbed for each other, seemingly going straight for the throat, as they struggled for the upper hand. "Tim, go now!" Jason grunted as he grappled with Bruce.

Tim was gone before Bruce had managed to dislodge himself from Jason's attempts to incapacitate him. He had just managed to flip Jason when the roar of a bike caught his attention. Tim swerved in between them. "On now!" He growled, as Jason scrambled onto the bike, and the two of them were out of the warehouse before he could even hope to follow them.

The End (for now)


	20. Chapter 20

Nightwing jumped on his bike, and immediately hit his comm. He wasn't sure what had happened, but what he had just seen made him truly worry. "O, what the hell happened?"

"Lots of stuff has been happening around here, FBW. You're going to have to be a little more specific."

"I was just at the hideout. Tim and Jason cleared out. There isn't a single thing left…not so much as a gum wrapper. What the hell did I miss while playing 'Mr. Doesn't-smack-Damian's-head-off-the-ground?'"

"That's impossible." Oracle spat out, and Dick was fairly certain that she was glaring.

He could hear her hitting the keys harder than she normally did when she typed, which had him worrying even more, because Oracle always knew what was going on. "What do you mean that's impossible?"

"Tim checked in with me this morning. They had no plans to leave. They were going to interrogate Daisuke, but that was it. Tim definitely would have mentioned it if they had had plans to move to a new hideout."

Nightwing increased his speed dramatically. Clearly, he needed to get back to the cave, and try to figure out what the hell was going on. He could easily see Jason underestimating Daisuke and ending up…well, he didn't want to think dead, but it was the only thing that came to mind, but Tim? Tim wasn't the type to ever underestimate anyone, and he always took extreme precautions when working with metas. It was true that Tim could have been overruled by Jason. After all, it wasn't as though Jason didn't have an overbearing personality, but Dick couldn't actually imagine Tim allowing himself to be intimidated by anyone, especially not Jason.

The only explanation that Dick could come up with was that something had gone drastically wrong somewhere. He could only hope that they had managed to get away and find a safe place to hide out. Dick had checked the security on the warehouse himself, and knew that Tim was constantly updating it, so he knew that there was no way that this was just some rookie mistake where the two of them had been followed and had to leave in a hurry. He could only pray that Damian hadn't found them, or worse Bruce.

Nightwing wasn't even halfway to the cave when Oracle contacted him again. "We have a problem…a _big_ problem."

He didn't like that tone of voice…not one bit. "When do we not?"

"I checked the feed from the cameras that Tim set up for me."

It took Dick a moment to realize that the squeaking noise that he was hearing was the sound of his gauntlets on the handle bars. He forced himself to relax his grip slightly. "And?"

"He knows."

It didn't take a genius to know who she was referring to, and it didn't take a detective to know that Dick was going to be walking on even thinner ice than before when he finally made it back. "How much does he know?"

"There's no way to tell, but assume he knows everything."

The 'because he always does' wasn't spoken, but it was there all the same. "Understood."

When Nightwing arrived at the cave he wasn't actually surprised to see all of Tim and Jason's equipment from the warehouse scattered around in pieces. Dick didn't even get the chance to examine what all was there before Bruce emerged from the shadows.

"Did you know about this?"

Dick could tell just from his tone that Bruce was in complete Bat mode, and he knew better than to give away anything just yet. "Know about what?"

"That Tim and Jason are working together to kill Damian."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, kill was never on the table. They promised me that." After Dick realized what had come out of his mouth he tried to backpedal. "I mean, what gives you that impression?"

"You've been working with them."

"I never said that."

Bruce glared at him. "You didn't have to."

Dick sighed as he reached for Bruce. "He's a demon, Bruce. He's going to destroy the world. He has to be stopped."

"Get out," was all that Bruce said before he turned away from Dick.

Dick blinked a few times at that. It wasn't the first time that he had heard those words from Bruce, but it wasn't something that Dick ever thought he'd get used to either. "You're willing to protect a demon and cast out those you once called your children? I…I don't think I'll ever really understand you, Bruce. I've known that for years, but this? This is even more confusing than all of the times that you've saved The Joker."

Dick didn't give him a chance to respond. If Bruce wanted to protect the ones who hurt his family then that was his problem. Dick got back on his bike and sped out of the cave. He waited until he was actually in Gotham before hitting his comm.. He didn't see any reason to take out his frustrations on anyone else…unlike Bruce apparently. "O, it's N. We need to find them."

"I'm working on it. How'd it go with B?"

"He told me to get out. It was like I was a puppy who just chewed on his shoes, except I think he probably would have been kinder to the puppy…at least I hope so."

He could hear the sudden silence when she stopped typing. "If you need to talk…"

"No," Dick interrupted her before she could finish that. "I'm not a kid anymore. Besides, if I _was _actually screwed up in the head over this, I think Jason would punch me in the face the next time he saw me, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't dodge."

She laughed lightly at him. "Okay, but if you do need to talk…"

"I know, and thanks, but right now I just want to focus on finding the other two."

"I'll let you know what I find." She didn't give him a chance to reply before cutting the connection.

Nightwing swerved in and out of traffic aimlessly. He wasn't really sure where he was headed, but at 90 miles an hour he didn't really think it mattered as long as it got him the hell away from Gotham. He figured that now that he was on the outs with Bruce, he could work just as fine on this mission from any other city.

Dick stopped once he was in New York. He changed into his civvies, and then made his way to his apartment in what normal people would consider record time. Dick, however, considered it Sunday driving. He clambered his way up the stairs and through the door with intentions of a nap--and was promptly thwarted by the realization that he wasn't alone. Before he could even get into a facsimile of a fighting stance Dick was pinned to the ground. "Jason, that's enough. Let him up."

Dick blinked a few times as he registered the voice. "Tim?"

Jason finally got off of Dick. "Yeah, we figured it would only be a matter of time before the Bat threw you out, too."

Dick got to his feet as well. "And you felt it was necessary to tackle me the moment I came through the door because…?"

Jason shrugged, and gave a look that Dick was sure was supposed to be some degree of innocence, but it was clear that innocence just didn't work on Jason. "It's been awhile since I've gotten to annoy you, and you were completely off guard."

Dick glared at him as he folded his arms over his chest. "I was not."

Tim snorted at that. "Oh, you so were."

Dick turned his glare onto Tim. "I think you've been spending too much time with him, little brother."

Tim smirked at him evilly. "Well, you'll get no arguments there."

Jason rolled his eyes at the two of them. "Great, are we over this brotherly crap? Can we get to work now?"

Dick laughed at that. "I thought Tim was the workaholic bat."

"No, he's the bat freak. Get it right."

Tim rolled his eyes. "If this is going to digress into another pissing match, I think I'll go take a nap." Tim started to walk away in the direction of Dick's bedroom.

Dick moved to block Tim's way. "Oh no, little brother, the bed is mine, and I just got done dealing with full on bat, so I deserve a nap."

Jason walked over and sat down on the couch. "Well, that depends actually. Did he attack you?"

Dick's eyes clearly widened at that. "What? Bruce attacked you guys?"

Tim shook his head as he walked over and flicked one of Jason's ears. "To be fair, Jason, you went to jump on him first.

Jason wagged a finger at him. "Nah uh, that was only after he leapt at us, and it was really only to give you enough time to go get the bike."

Tim nodded once at that. "Okay, I concede, and please don't ever make me drive between you and Bruce inside a warehouse again. That floor did not have nearly enough traction on it, and you both could have been dead."

Dick stared from one to the other. "You did what?"

Jason punched Tim's arm hard. "Relax. Baby bird is just being dramatic. He did fine, and I was actually pretty impressed with his handling of my bike...especially after his last bike incident."

Tim growled at him as he faked a punch and kicked Jason's shin just as hard as he had punched Tim. "We discussed that, and you said you weren't going to mention that again."

Jason smirked at him. "I lied. Get used to it."

Dick rolled his eyes at them. "Alright, you two…I was serious about that nap, so try not to kill each other while I'm sleeping. Oh, and one of you contact Oracle."

Jason's eyes flared with amusement. "Okay, baby bird, he said killing is out, but apparently maiming is in."

Tim raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you really think that you can catch me?"

Jason's smile had a predatory edge to it. "You bet I can."

Dick yawned as he headed towards him bedroom. "Take it to the roof, you two. I don't want you killing my coffee table, lamp, or other furniture."

"You are no fun." Dick heard Tim's voice float in from the living room as he lay down on his bed. A few moments later he heard the sound of a window shutting. He smiled to himself as drifted off to sleep.

The End (for now)


	21. Chapter 21

Dick awoke to the sounds of a scuffle coming from his living room. He was fairly certain that he had told the other two not to break anything. Before he could get up and go yell at them, however, the fighting stopped. Dick knew better than to be relieved by that. He walked out of his room to find Tim and Jason sitting on his couch watching a Discovery Channel program. Dick smiled as he turned to Jason. "So, how'd he win the remote?"

Jason folded his arms over his chest and scowled at the screen. "By being a sneaky bastard."

Tim smirked at him evilly. "It's not my fault that you fell for it."

Jason glared at him. "You're evil. You totally would have thrown my kriss out the window."

Tim breathed out a laugh as he turned his attention back to the TV. "And that's why I win."

Dick just laughed at the two of them as he made his way to his kitchen. "Why do I have a feeling I'm going to have to make an emergency shopping trip with the two of you here?"

Tim shook his head as he moved the remote away from Jason's grasp. "Nah, I did that this morning. However, I can't promise that you won't need to buy a new coffee table." Tim knocked said coffee table into Jason's leg to get him to stop reaching for the remote as he spoke.

Dick rolled his eyes as he opened his cupboard. "Tim, do you want to explain why there are two different types of peanut butter in my cupboard?"

Tim shrugged. "Jason likes the crunchy kind, you don't, and I could care less."

Dick stared at him oddly for a moment. "So, the two of you have gotten close while you were hiding out then?"

Jason turned to face him. "Not really. I promised not to try to kill him during this hellish mission and he promised to stop filling my knife sheaths with peanut butter."

Tim smirked at the memory. "Its how I found out that you preferred crunchy peanut butter, after all."

Dick laughed again as he started making his breakfast. "Now if only that trick would work on Damian."

Tim and Jason both stopped their squabble for the remote at the mention of Damian. "Um, maybe now would be a good time to think about what we intend to do about that."

Dick sighed at Tim's response. "Yeah, I think we should, but I really just don't want to think about any of that right now."

Jason got off the couch and stormed into the kitchen. "Well, too damn bad, Grayson. I know that you're probably still all fucked up in the head over daddy Bats kicking you out, but now isn't the time to whine about that."

Tim glared at Jason as he, too, came to join them in the kitchen. "Let him have his breakfast, and if he needs some time to brood over the fact that Bruce will always pick his family last, well, then I think we should just give him an hour or two." Tim didn't actually want to let the bitterness into his tone, but he couldn't help it.

Jason rolled his eyes at Tim's response. "I don't see why it's so damn surprising. Need I bring up The Joker?" Jason was pretty sure that he saw both of them wince at the mention of that name, but he didn't really care. He couldn't comprehend why the two of them didn't seem to understand what he had learned quite some time ago. "Bruce will always protect everyone…except those he calls family."

Dick's brows furrowed at that. He really didn't want to get into a fight with Jason right now, but he couldn't let that go. "Jason, it's not like that…not at all."

Jason laughed, but there was no humor in it, as he folded his arms over his chest. "How many times does he have to toss you to the wayside, Dickie bird, before you realize that Bruce isn't worth our time?"

Tim sighed as he stepped between the two of them. He didn't want to agree with Jason, but that fight in the warehouse hadn't actually made anything Jason said false. "Guys, let's not fight about this. Let's just accept that none of us will ever truly understand Bruce and move on. We have to focus on the task at hand."

Jason shook his head as he started to walk back towards the couch. "What's the point? If we go after Damian, we're going to have to fight the Bat. Now, I'm completely okay with that, but are you two?"

Tim and Dick stared at each other for a moment. It wasn't as though neither one of them hadn't realized that or anything, but the prospect of such a fight was still daunting to them. Neither of them could really imagine fighting their mentor when it wasn't a spar. Tim pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to breathe. "He's right, you know. There's no way we're going to get within ten feet of Damian without the Bat standing in our way. We've got to be ready for that, and I don't know about you, but, as it stands at this precise moment, I'm not ready for that. There's no point in even thinking about going after Damian until we're prepared to fight Bruce."

Jason scoffed from his seat on the couch. "Don't kid yourself, baby bird. When we go up against him there won't be any Bruce there to fight. It'll be the Bat, 100%. That's what you've both gotta be ready to fight, cause it won't matter to him that you used to be his sons."

Dick didn't know how to respond to that. The fact that being Bruce's son was past tense was enough to make his heart seize. Dick didn't think that he'd ever be ready to really fight the man who was far more than just a mentor to him. "I…I'm going out. I'll be back later. Don't kill each other while I'm gone." Dick was out of the door before either of them could say a word.

Jason turned to Tim. "He's gotta get over that."

Tim rolled his eyes. "Give him some time, Jason. He's not used to…" Tim trailed off searching for the right words.

"Meaning nothing to B…well, he should be used to it."

Tim shook his head. "Go watch TV. I'm going to go work on something."

Jason shrugged. "Yeah, okay, you two go have your breakdowns. I'll be over here when you guys feel like growing up. Bruce is not the end all be all, people."

Tim rubbed his temples with one hand as he grabbed Dick's laptop from his desk with the other. "Not now, Jason. Please, just not right now."

Jason grabbed the remote and started flipping through the channels. "Yeah, sure, whatever, baby bird...just remember that I'm the one who told you that Bruce would protect that little demon no matter what proof we gave him."

Tim sighed to himself as he opened the laptop and tried to ignore the tension headache that was blossoming at the base of his neck and head. "Yeah, I know. I just hoped that, for once, he'd see reason."

Jason glanced over at Tim. It was hard not to feel bad for the kid when he looked that down. "I know, but that's just not Bruce."

Tim nodded once before focusing on the screen in front of him and typing away. "Noted."

Jason wanted to hit Tim the moment that the word had left his mouth, but Jason knew that one word responses and ignoring everything else around him were just Tim's way of dealing. Tim liked to disengage from the things that were bothering him, and most of the time that suited Jason just fine. It wasn't like he needed Tim to keep his mind occupied. Jason returned his attention to the TV, and decided to just let Tim have his moment.

***

When Dick came back four hours later, Tim was still sitting in a chair in front of his desk doing something on his laptop while Jason surfed through the channels before settling on the military channel. Dick rolled his eyes at Jason's choice before going to bother Tim. "Whatcha doin'?"

Tim exited out of everything that he was doing before shutting the laptop and handing it back to Dick. "Nothing, I think I'm going to go get a bottle of water, want anything?"

Dick shook his head. "No, thanks."

Tim turned to Jason. "What about you?"

Jason smirked at him. "Beer, same as always."

Tim rolled his eyes as he headed toward the kitchen. Dick followed him out of the room. "We can actually work through this whole Bruce issue together, you know."

Tim shook his head as he opened the refrigerator. "I'm good. I think I just want to work with your free weights, plan, and possibly throw this beer bottle at Jason's head…not necessarily in that order."

Dick sighed as he grabbed Tim's forearm. "Tim…"

Before Dick could say anything else, Tim tore his forearm from Dick's grasp. "Look, we've got a lot to work through, and it's not just the Bruce issue that I'm worried about. I've been in touch with Jason Blood, and he seems to think that our original plan has a few more kinks in it than we originally thought. I'm meeting with him tomorrow to work out a few of the problems, but there's no guarantee that this is going to work, even if we find a way to deal with Bruce."

"Okay, relax; we'll find a way through this."

"And if we don't?"

"Then…" Dick trailed off, not really sure what to say.

"Then everything goes to hell. Yeah, you see the problem."

"Tim…"

Tim held up a hand to stop him. "Look, just let me deal with this in my own way. I'll figure something out after my meeting with Jason Blood."

Dick nodded and followed Tim back into the living room. Tim tossed the beer to Jason, and the three of them settled on the couch.

The End (for now)


	22. Chapter 22

Bruce sat in front of his computer screen fuming. This was Tim's work; that was obvious. Well, to be fair, Tim could have had help, but it definitely had Tim's signature all over it. Bruce glared at the screen as he watched the footage once again. His fingers curled around the edge of his desk involuntarily. Everything was so clear now...everything except for why none of them had told him what was going on. Why hadn't any of his sons just showed him the damn feed themselves? Everything that happened...everything that he had done and said could have been avoided had they just been honest with him...had they just included him. Bruce wasn't naive; he knew why none of them had...especially Jason. They believed that, despite everything, he would protect the one who had hurt them, and he had mistakenly proved them right. For once, Bruce didn't have any idea how he intended to fix this one.

Tim had been responsible for hiding the feed; although, given how long it took Bruce to find it, it was pretty obvious that Tim had either been spending far more time with Barbara than Bruce had originally thought, or Barbara had helped him with that little task. It pained Bruce to watch the exchange on that rooftop, and it hurt even more every time that he watched as fire consumed the entire screen. Bruce knew that Tim and Jason had been injured when he fought them in the warehouse. He could tell that just from their movements. He knew that it was a mistake to go in fighting, and he also knew the moment that he had entered the building that he didn't have anything even close to all of the information.

Bruce had rarely made such a mistake since his younger days, and he knew from the moment that he found the feed that he would probably never stop paying for it. Bruce knew he needed to find a way to make this up to all of them, but he only knew where to find Dick; and when he finally did work up the nerve to talk to Dick, he knew that the ensuing conversation wasn't going to be a pleasant one for either of them. He sighed to himself as he moved away from his desk. He needed to figure out what his next move was. He couldn't very well leave the cave or the manor in the hands of...whatever Damian was.

Bruce did, however, thank what little luck he had that Damian was spending the day with Alfred. Normally, he'd worry more for Alfred's safety, but Damian didn't have any reason to believe that his scheme wasn't going as planned. Plus, Alfred had his shot gun, and no matter how Bruce felt about that, it wasn't about to change any time soon. Bruce dressed speedily, and then headed for Dick's apartment. He had a lot to apologize for to all of his sons. He just hoped that Dick would hear him out.

When Bruce arrived at Dick's apartment he was shocked to find all three of his sons asleep on Dick's couch. He wanted to be grateful that his mistakes had brought the three of them together, but he couldn't force himself to focus on that feeling. He needed to say so much to all of them, and Bruce wasn't sure he was going to be able to do that all at once. His original plan was to talk to Dick and convince him to help him find Tim and Jason. Bruce had hoped that by the time he had all three of his sons together again he'd be able to express what he was feeling. Unfortunately, he was pretty sure that no amount of time would make that possible.

Bruce saw no reason to prolong his discomfort, so he slipped inside through the window, as silently as ever. He may have started his trip to New York with the hope of talking to Dick first, but after seeing the three of them, Bruce had decided the easiest one to talk to first would probably be Tim. Tim was always logical, even when his emotional side really should have been running things. Bruce silently crept over and woke Tim. The moment the boy realized who had awakened him, fear overtook his expression and he immediately made to wake the other two, but Bruce effectively knocked him out before he could do more than take a breath, and dragged him out to the roof. He didn't need this conversation to be a spectator sport.

The look of terror on Tim's face when Bruce woke him up was a far greater pain than any hit Bruce had ever taken. He had made a lot of mistakes in his life, but never before had one of his sons feared him. Sure, sometimes there was hatred, disappointment, sadness, or anger, but never had any of them looked so terrified of him. Fortunately, Bruce hadn't gotten all that much time to brood on the matter, because he had used a knock out gas that Tim had started to build up a tolerance to. When Tim finally did come to, he scrambled away from Bruce as though there was going to be another fight right there, which Bruce had to admit was a fair assessment from Tim's perspective. Bruce knew he had failed them all once again. He just didn't realize how badly until this moment. "We need to talk."

Tim got into a ready position. He couldn't fight Bruce, he knew that, but he could run away. New York, may not be the city he grew up in, but he knew it's rooftops better than Bruce. "I think we did all of the necessary talking back at the warehouse."

Bruce growled, but that was due to his own frustrations with himself. "That was a misunderstanding."

Tim laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I think the only misunderstanding there was was my hope that for once you'd listen...for once you'd see reason...for once you'd trust us."

Bruce's heart seized at the pain and anger in Tim's voice, still as controlled as ever, and that made everything worse. He knew that he deserved Tim's anger, and so much more from all of them. "Tim, I was wrong. I should have known there was more to the situation. I let my own fears blind me from the truth. I'm sorry."

Tim just stared at him blankly for a moment before his expression shifted into one of his better bat glares. "Your fears of what? That I had turned into another Jason?"

Bruce didn't say anything. There was nothing to say. Tim's glare only intensified. "If you and Dick are so worried about that outcome...if you both truly believe that's what I'm going to become, then why in hell do you two continue to allow me to wear the Robin suit. What the hell have I ever done to make either of you think I want to be more like Jason? Please, tell me where, exactly, I screwed up so phenomenally that both of you seem to think that's what lies ahead of me."

Bruce just stared at him for a moment. He had certainly had his own suspicions of what that fight between the three of them had been about, but he hadn't actually known that it was about Tim's similarities to Jason. "I can't speak for Dick, but I always fear the worst."

"Which in this case means me becoming like him? I'm not...I don't...I wouldn't actually..." Tim sighed in frustration, but didn't tug on his own hair, though he looked as though he really wanted to. "You can't honestly believe..." He laughed again with no humor and dropped his gaze to the ground. "...actually given that it's you, I guess you could-and most likely would-think that."

The hurt in Tim's voice only made Bruce want to punch himself in the face more, despite the inefficiency of such an act. "Tim, I was wrong...about a lot of things."

When Tim finally brought his focus back to Bruce his facial expression was completely blank. "I take it that you're talking about Damian now, so that means you've actually seen the video feed, and you probably found all of our potential plans."

It wasn't a question, but Bruce nodded once anyway. "It took an impressive amount of time to find it all hidden in the Cray's system. Did Oracle help you?"

Tim shook his head. "No, I did that all on my own."

Bruce inclined his head slightly. "Impressive."

Tim smirked. "I thought you might think so."

The two of them fell into an awkward silence for a time before, suddenly, Tim spoke again. "Does this mean that you intend to help us with our plan?"

Bruce tensed his jaw for a moment. "Understand, I can not allow Damian to..."

Tim held up a hand to stop him. "You can't let him have free run over the manor and the cave, I know. It's why Dick was in place as our double agent to begin with. We didn't want anything to happen to you or Alfred."

Bruce nodded once again. "You'll let me know if there's anything that you need. You will keep me informed of every move you intend to make, and when the time comes, we will all do this together. Is that clear?"

Tim smirked again. "Crystal, Boss, and I guess you want me to tell the other two about this lovely little conversation and give them a semi-human apology from you."

Bruce's jaw tensed again. "No. I want you to tell them about this conversation, but I need to talk to both of them separately. Let them know that I will see them later."

Tim gave a mock salute. Bruce would have mentioned something about him spending too much time with his brothers, but he needed to get back before Damian got suspicious, and, for once, he didn't actually think that Tim spending more time with his brothers was a bad thing. Before Tim could say anything else, Bruce was gone.

The End (for now)


	23. Chapter 23

"So, what, Daddy Bats just drops in, apologizes to baby bird, and we all just call it good? No, fuck that."

Dick sighed as he rubbed his temples. "Jason, calm down."

"No, this is ridiculous." Jason turned his attention to Tim. "Are you forgetting that he attacked us-while injured, mind you-in that warehouse. And don't even give me any bullshit that he didn't know we were injured. He's the Bat. He damn well knows when he's fighting an injured opponent."

Tim just stared at Jason blankly. "I wasn't going to say that he didn't know; however, I was going to point out that he didn't actually hit any of our injuries."

Jason scoffed at that. "Yeah, right. That's only because we fled before he got the chance."

Tim glanced at Dick-who looked as though he was at his wit's end-before continuing his argument with Jason. "Look, I get that you aren't particularly happy about this, Jason, but even you have to admit that having Bruce on our side makes everything easier. He can keep Damian busy. Not to mention that not having the Bat standing in our way when it's time to take out that demon is definitely a plus here."

Jason folded his arms over his chest as he glared at him. "I'm not saying that it's not helpful. I'm saying that I'm still pissed."

Dick rolled his eyes at him. "You're you, Jason...you're always pissed."

Tim stepped between the two of them before another fight broke out. There were only so many times a person could fix a coffee table before it was irreparable. "Look, can we just stop fighting for a moment here? I didn't even give the two of you his message."

Jason rolled his eyes as he threw his hands in the air. "Oh, great, just what we all need-another god damn Bruce message."

Dick wanted to say something about Jason's comment, but he knew that saying anything would only entice Jason to be more of an ass. "What did he say?"

"Just that he'd stop by to talk to each of you separately."

Jason started heading towards the window as soon as Tim had stopped speaking. Dick hurried over to block his exit. "And where, exactly, do you think you're going?"

Jason stared at Dick as though he was crazy. "If Daddy Bats is coming back here for a chat, then I'm making sure I'm nowhere near this place."

Dick folded his arms over his chest, and refused to move. "I don't think so. You're still hurt, and beside it's just Bruce."

Jason glared at Dick, and added a growl just for effect. "I don't care if it's Mother Teresa. I'm not sticking around here."

Dick raised an eyebrow at him. "What are you so afraid of, Jason? Bruce isn't..."

Jason scoffed at him. "I am not afraid of Bruce."

Tim smirked as he stepped closer to them. "Then why have you been avoiding him like the plague since this whole thing started?"

Jason spun around to glare at Tim. "Oh, so suddenly I'm a coward for dodging the big guy...like the two of you haven't done the same damn thing before."

Tim shook his head at Jason. "Not like this, and certainly not to this extent."

"I just don't see any reason to be lectured to death. I don't need his antiquated sense of morality suffocating me, okay?"

Tim folded his arms over his chest as he raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh, is that your problem? Or are you simply trying to avoid feeling guilty?"

Jason growled as he took another step closer to Tim, looming over him. "I don't feel any guilt, kid."

Tim's eyebrow rose ever so slightly. "Oh really? Is that why you haven't been killing since you've been working with us?"

Jason rolled his eyes. "Why the hell does everyone mention that? Maybe I've been just a bit busy trying to keep the world from ending. I've got priorities, you know?"

Tim was about to respond when Dick cut in. "The only priority that you've ever had was being angry, Jason...well, that and killing."

Jason sat back down on the couch with a smug expression. "Hey, I'm an ass. I never said that I wasn't, golden boy, but even asses have priorities."

Dick raised an eyebrow at him, as he took a step back. "Uh huh, and what's yours this time?"

Jason stood abruptly, and tried for the window again. "Getting the hell out of here before I have to listen to another lecture that I've already heard a thousand times. I could rattle any of them off to you from memory, and you've heard them too, so why the hell you're sticking around for the mind-numbing fun, I don't know."

Dick grabbed Jason's arm to keep him from leaving. "Well, I've never heard any of your lectures, Jason. After all, I'm not an angry child who kills people in his spare time."

Jason shrugged off Dick's hand. "I get the job done."

Dick rolled his eyes. "Oh, sure, that's what you're doing."

"What the hell did you ever do, Dick?" The last word was spoken as an insult. "All you ever did was get caught."

"I became Nightwing, and..."

"And you simultaneously became a self-righteous ass." Jason interrupted before Dick could finish.

Tim sighed to himself as he realized that the coffee table was never going to survive the night...hell, it probably wasn't going to survive the next ten minutes...poor coffee table. "Guys, why don't we all just calm down, and try to..."

"No, screw this shit. I'm outta here. You want to call everything that B did okay...well then, fine, but don't expect me to do the same." Jason managed to storm over to the window and open it, but before he could leave, a dark shadow fell in front of it. "Well, fuck." Jason took a step back inside to let Bruce in, but that was just because he really didn't have any other options. "Oh, great, and we get the Bat for this lovely lecture. Well, my day is just fucked."

Batman stepped in, and immediately removed the cowl. "I just couldn't get out of the manor as Bruce Wayne this late at night without Damian raising too many questions."

Jason took a moment to scan the apartment for another escape route. He knew that there was absolutely no way that he could get to the door without one of the other two stopping him. He was thoroughly trapped, and intended to severely hurt the other two after Bruce left. "Well, I'm sure you'll want to talk to big bird first, so Tim and I will just get out of your way." Jason didn't actually believe that any of the three of them were going to let him get away with that obvious avoidance tactic, but he still felt like he had to try.

Bruce shook his head slightly. "Jason...roof." Bruce had meant it to be a question...a request, but by the expression on Jason's face, Bruce knew that he had failed to get his intended inflection across.

It didn't matter how much Jason hated orders-especially from this man, especially now-or how much he wanted to just ignore that one. It was ingrained in him to follow that voice, no matter how much he hated himself for doing so. "Lead the way, big guy." Jason gestured to the window; meanwhile, he wanted nothing more than to just run in the other direction. This was not on his agenda for the day, and Jason knew that there was just no good way for a conversation with Bruce to end-especially since everyone knew that Bruce didn't do conversations. He grunted, gave orders, and glared. Jason often thought that that was the extent of Bruce's communication skills.

The moment that they were both on the roof, Bruce started pacing, which Jason knew was a bad sign. He knew he could make a break for it when Bruce made another round toward the other side of the roof, but Jason wasn't sure how far he could get before Bruce took him out. He wasn't sure how much time he could gain by the fact that they were in New York and not Gotham. Before Jason got a chance to even try a half-assed attempt to escape, Bruce turned to him with an expression that Jason wasn't used to seeing from him. Bruce's facial expression wasn't blank, which, in and of itself, was a shock; but it wasn't the disappointment that Jason had gotten used to seeing, either. "Thank you."

Jason wasn't sure he had heard Bruce right at first, and once he was certain that he had, he started looking for signs of drug use, mind control, alien parasites, or a mind-altering device. "What for?"

"For giving me a chance to talk to you."

Jason scoffed at him. "Right...talk...like this isn't going to be just one more damn lecture about how I'm not good enough."

Bruce looked pained at Jason's accusation, but pressed on anyway. "I shouldn't have assumed the worst about you and Tim working together. I'm sorry."

Jason laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Right, because our biggest problem is the fact that you, once again, assumed the worst of me. It must kill you inside that I actually proved you wrong this time."

"No, it's not like that."

Jason scowled at him. "Sure, it's not. Come on, B, be real. You overlooked everything that you know about Tim just because he was working with me. That kid doesn't have the ability to kill another living thing, and you know it. I haven't even spent all that much time with him, when you think about it, and I know that when things get bad, he's more likely to kill himself than anyone else, and you just automatically assumed he 'went down the wrong path,' because he was running with me."

"It was a reasonable assumption given the information I had."

"And what would that be? That he was working with me and hates the brat? Oh, yeah, that makes what you thought a really reasonable assumption alright...not."

Bruce's jaw tensed, but when he spoke, his voice was level. "Tim and I have spoken about that."

Jason rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm well aware of all of the shit that you told him, and you know what I think? I think that baby bird forgave you way too easily, and I'm not him."

Bruce's gaze dropped ever so slightly. "You're right, Jason."

Jason's eyes narrowed at that. "What do you mean?"

"Tim did forgive me too easily. He should still be angry. He's my partner. I work with him almost every night, and still, I believed the worst of him. He deserves better. And so do you, Jason."

Jason glared as anger overtook him. "Oh, no, don't you dare start acting like you have a soul now, bastard. Do you know what kind of pain you've caused me? Not Joker...not Talia...not the grave...not the pit...you!" Jason would have continued, but the rage made his throat close up; or maybe, it was the unshed tears. He couldn't tell anymore.

Bruce's heart clenched at the obvious pain and anger in Jason's voice. He knew from the beginning that Jason was going to be the hardest one to talk to. He had so many things to apologize for...so many things he'd done wrong. "I know, Jason. I'm sorry."

Jason shook his head, as if to clear it. "No, fuck you, Bruce. I'm sick of your half-assed apologizes. You want to apologize, then stop choosing the bad guys over your sons, stop leaving us to die, and stop always assuming the worst of all of us. Tim and Dick would fucking die for you-although, I don't know why...you sure as hell aren't worth it-but they would, and you treat them just like you treat me."

Bruce was shocked that Jason had brought his brothers into this. For a long time it seemed as though Jason blamed and hated them just as much as he did Bruce. The fact that he was defending them now was something that Bruce wasn't expecting. "I..."

"No," Jason interrupted before Bruce could say anything else to anger him. "I'm nothing more than just another criminal to you, and I get that. I'm okay with that. I've never needed your approval...never asked for it, and never fucking wanted it. But them? They don't deserve to be treated like me. It may make me sick how the two of them are like fucking puppies, following you without question, but it's what they do. They've never fucked up like me, so don't treat them like me." Jason could feel the tears gathering in his eyes, and wanted nothing more than to be wearing his mask right now, even if he knew it wouldn't do any good.

Bruce just stared, not really sure what to say. Jason hadn't shown any emotion beyond anger for so long that it was hard to deal with the obvious emotional pain. Bruce took a step closer to Jason, and when he didn't move away, Bruce quickly gathered him into a hug...and for once it was just a hug...not an effective hold...not a simple pin...just a hug. "I'm sorry, son. I've failed you all so much."

Jason clung to Bruce. He told himself it was because he didn't have another option, and the only thing that really bothered him about it was that Jason didn't know how much of that was a lie. For so long, Bruce had been the only thing he had to hold onto-even when it was just his anger with the man that Jason was clinging to while he was out of his mind-it was still always about Bruce. When he clawed his way out of his own grave, it was only to get back to Bruce. Every time he had ever attacked his brothers, it was to send a message to Bruce. Most of Jason's existence had to do with Bruce...even before his death. Bruce was the first person to give him any form of hope after his mother's death, and it didn't matter if he was still angry with Bruce. Jason couldn't keep from holding onto him, once again, as he cried.

The End (for now)


	24. Chapter 24

When Tim slipped out of Dick's apartment to the roof, he told himself that it was in everyone's best interest. His original plan was to just sit back and watch, and if it looked like he needed to jump in before another fight broke out, then he would be ready to do so. He didn't see any reason to allow Jason to hurt Bruce just because he was angry with the world, but Tim also saw no reason to allow Bruce to hurt Jason again. After all, Jason had recently started acting better...at least with Dick and him. However, the need to stop the two of them from causing each other more pain never arose, and that put Tim on edge more than anything else.

It was good that the two of them had seemingly reconciled, but it wasn't something that Tim thought he'd ever see. When he first left the apartment, he thought that leaving Bruce and Jason alone to talk was a bad idea. Dick didn't agree with him. He thought that they should both give Bruce and Jason time to work everything out, but Tim didn't see that happening. He couldn't really say how happy he was to find out that he had been wrong.

After all, Bruce had hurt Jason a lot...even Tim knew that, and Tim didn't think that Jason deserved to be hurt again...no matter what he had done in the past. True, most of the time Jason acted like an angry child who lashed out at everyone, but Tim couldn't actually blame him. The killing was wrong...that wasn't going to change any time soon, but after everything that Jason had been through Tim thought that he could understood it. He could see how, to Jason, that seemed like a logical step. It wasn't, and it was never going to be, but Tim could see how Jason thought so.

Tim was astonished to see Jason clinging to Bruce after their conversation. It wasn't something that Tim ever thought was going to happen. Jason had spent so long just being angry at all of them, and Tim was fairly certain that he was just going to stay that way...even after the long months that they had spent working together. Tim couldn't believe that it had been so long, but running away, staying under the radar, and planning and re-planning had taken a lot of time.

He made it back into the apartment before either of the other two had realized that they had been watched. Tim figured that if Jason started acting weird around him and Dick, then he'd mention something and try to get him to talk about his conversation with Bruce; otherwise there was no reason to say anything.

When he got back inside Dick was waiting for him by the window. "So, did they break out into another argument?"

Tim shook his head. "No, in fact, I think that they might actually be okay once this is all over."

Dick looked absolutely shocked at that. "What?"

Tim held up his hands in the air defensively. "Hey, I said okay...not great...not good...okay. I think that they both still have a lot of issues to work through, but I think maybe, just maybe, they might be on the right path to start doing just that."

Dick stared at Tim in disbelief. "Well, let's hope that you're right, little brother, because I, for one, would really like to see this family whole again."

Tim raised an eyebrow at him. "When have we ever been whole, Dick? I think you're deluding yourself again."

Dick was about to argue that, but before he could, Jason entered through the window. He looked like a mess. It was clear that he had been crying, and Dick could tell from the smell that he had been out on the roof, chain smoking. "Bruce said that he needed to get back before Damian got suspicious and went looking for Batman, only to find him not in Gotham, but he said that he still wants to talk to you. Didn't say when he'd stop by, though."

Dick nodded, not wanting to say anything to set Jason off. He knew that if Jason had had a real heart-to-heart with Bruce-which is what it sounded like from what Tim had said-then it would only take one misstep to set Jason off. Jason didn't do emotionally open very well, but then again neither did the rest of them. "Okay, do you want anything to eat? I promise I'll let Tim cook."

Jason just shook his head. He knew that he probably looked like hell, and probably should have stayed on the roof until he fully calmed down, but after his many cigarettes, all he wanted to do was come inside and rest. "Nah, I think that I'm just gonna sleep. You mind if I steal your bed? I'm just not in the mood to deal with your lumpy ass couch."

Normally Dick would have argued...not so much about Jason stealing his bed, but that was a fairly new couch and he knew damn well that it wasn't lumpy...he had fallen asleep on it enough...too exhausted to make it all the way to his bed. "Yeah, that's fine, but make sure that you change first. I don't want it smelling like an ashtray."

Jason grunted at him noncommittally as he walked away. "Yeah, yeah, sure whatever."

Dick glanced over at Tim once Jason had shut and locked the door. "Do you want to make dinner? He might be in the mood for it later, and I really don't want to set him off. If he wakes up and he's hungry he isn't going to want to eat anything I make."

Tim gave a small smile. "Yeah, but that's mainly because you can barely make macaroni and cheese from a box."

Dick gave him a mock hurt expression. "Hey, I only burned it a little."

Tim raised an eyebrow ever so slightly. "Uh huh...let's face it...you got Bruce's cooking ability, which means that you can barely boiling water without a major catastrophe happening."

Dick stared at Tim for a moment...trying to think of something to combat his statement with. "Hey, there was that time that I made brownies...that went okay."

Tim's eyebrow rose just a little higher. "And which time would that be? The time that Alfred helped you, and watched you do every step, or the time that we only broke three knives trying to cut the brownies?"

Dick glared at Tim mildly. "Oh, shut up, and get in the kitchen."

Tim glared right back at him. "Do you want to add a woman on the end of that, so that way I have a very valid reason to punch you in the face?"

Dick snickered at that. "Oh, you wouldn't hit me in the face...I'm too pretty for that."

Tim rolled his eyes. "Yeah...sorry...forgot...I guess I'll just have to aim lower when you aren't wearing a cup."

Dick was trying not to laugh too loudly, so that he wouldn't disturb Jason. "Oh, you've got a mean streak, little brother."

Tim smiled evilly. "You only have yourself to blame, really. After all, you were one of my mentors."

"Hey, aren't you supposed to respect your elders?"

Tim shrugged. "I don't know. Aren't you supposed to be able to make pasta without a supervisor by the time that you're your age?"

Dick gave him a mock glare. "You better watch it, or I'll tickle you to death."

Tim laughed quietly. "You have to catch me first."

Dick shook his head. "No, no, we can't turn this into a game of rooftop tag. You have to make dinner."

Tim stared at Dick for a moment with a raised eyebrow. "What am I? Alfred? Make your own damn dinner."

"First, I'm sure that Alfred would _love _to hear you say that, and second, if I make dinner I'm buying pizza, and it's going to be covered in every topping that you hate."

Tim sighed as he started walking toward the kitchen. "Man, sometimes I hate how well you know me."

Dick smirked. "Yeah, me too."

Tim rolled his eyes. "Gee, Dick, love you too."

Dick grabbed Tim and put him in a headlock. "Ah, I love it when I can make you say it first...even if it is sarcasm."

Tim struggled to get out of the headlock before Dick could muss his hair. Unfortunately, he failed. "Do you have to do that?"

Dick smiled brightly. "Yup, now go make dinner." He released Tim, and followed him into the kitchen.

Dick hoped that in a few hours, Jason would get up and be willing to join them; and if not, he figured that he could always just annoy Tim. It was nice having both of his brothers with him...especially since having them around distracted him enough that he didn't think about his upcoming conversation with Bruce all that much. He loved Bruce, but sometimes the man could hurt him worse than any hit that he had ever taken out on the street. He knew that he would forgive Bruce for everything that had happened...Dick always did, but that didn't mean that the pain wouldn't linger. Dick mentally shook his head, and focused on helping Tim make dinner. There was no reason to concentrate on whatever would happen in the future, because right now, he had a brother who probably needed some comfort after his own conversation with Bruce, and another brother who needed to stop acting so serious all of the time. Dick just hoped that he was good enough to give them both what they needed, and so rightly deserved.

The End (for now)


	25. Chapter 25

It took almost a month before Bruce could find time to make it back to New York. Keeping Damian busy had been harder than either Bruce and Alfred had anticipated. However, having Oracle's help with that particular task made everything just a bit easier. When Bruce slipped in through the window of Dick's apartment he, once again, found Tim sitting with a laptop on his lap, most likely refining their latest plan after meeting with Jason Blood a handful of times over the past month. Jason was sitting on Dick's coffee table sharpening what looked like every knife the three of them owned, and Dick was perched on the back of the couch watching TV. The three of them looked so peaceful together that Bruce was reluctant to break the tenuous moment, especially since none of them had seemed to notice his arrival. However, he didn't think that prolonging the inevitable would do any of them any good.

Before he could step out from his hiding place, though, Jason abruptly stopped honing knives, Tim suddenly shut his laptop, and Dick jumped off the back of the couch...all simultaneously. They all turned to where Bruce was standing in the shadows. He would have laughed if he didn't think that it would end with Jason throwing one of the knives at him. Bruce stepped out of the shadows and gestured for all of them to stand down. Tim was the first to nod, and go back to what he was doing. Jason tensed the moment that he saw Bruce, but then shrugged and returned to his knives. Dick, on the other hand, glanced at the other two for a moment before making his way to the window. He gestured for Bruce to follow him.

Once they were on the roof, Bruce turned to Dick. But before he got a chance to say anything, Dick cut him off. "Look, you don't have to say anything. I know that you're sorry for everything that happened, and well, we're all healing, so I guess there's no point. I mean, it's not like any of us are actually good at this whole emotional thing anyway."

Bruce just stared at Dick for a moment. As much as he appreciated the out, Bruce knew that he had to do this-even if it was just for his own peace of mind. "You're wrong, Dick. I do need to say this. I am sorry for what happened, and I shouldn't have accused Tim the way that I did. But beyond that, I should have tried to listen to you, or at least I should have tried to talk to you. I shouldn't have thrown you out of the cave. I was wrong about so very many things. Jason helped me to realize just how many things I had been wrong about, and for that I am grateful."

Dick just nodded once, and didn't say anything for a long time. He was afraid to ruin the delicate moment. It wasn't every day that Bruce grew an emotional backbone, and he had every intention of savoring the moment for as long as possible. When it seemed as though Bruce had reached the peak of discomfort though, Dick laughed lightly. "When did you learn to talk about your feelings?"

Bruce stared at him impassively, but Dick could see the corner of his mouth twitch in what he knew was smile. "Some time after I started housing a demon, I would suspect."

Dick laughed whole-heartedly at that. "Did you just make a joke? I think you just made a joke."

Bruce just continued to stare. "I think it's time that the four of us got down to business. I brought Tim the supplies he wasn't able to procure on his own. Jason Blood has informed me that the current plan should work, and it shouldn't be too difficult to create a portal back to Damian's world, as long as we can subdue Damian before he realizes exactly what we're doing."

Dick nodded. "Yeah, Tim told us that he's been working with Jason Blood to perfect the spell, and, as long as we can give him time, he should be able to open the portal in as little as three minutes-once he's has everything set up."

Bruce grunted. He still wasn't happy that Tim had to be the one to open the portal, but since he seemed to be the main person Damian was set on destroying, it was necessary. The two of them apparently had a bond, at least that's what Jason Blood had said. Since Damian was most threatened by Tim, he would have to be the one who performed the spell. Apparently, it was essential that the portal be sustained long enough to shove Damian into it. That didn't mean that Bruce had to be comfortable with all of the magic use, but he already knew that there was no other feasible option for sending Damian back.

They returned to Dick's apartment before anything else could happen. Neither of them were surprised to find Tim and Jason in the exact same positions they had been in when Bruce and Dick made their exit to the roof. When Bruce and Dick walked back into the living room, both Tim and Jason stopped what they were doing, and turned to face them. Jason tensed again, but clearly tried to hide it, while Tim simply stood and walked over to Bruce. "I got your email, so I assume you brought what I needed with you."

Bruce nodded once before handing Tim a bunch of small pouches, and four large white candlesticks. "Jason Blood said..."

"That the pouches have to remain separate until I'm ready to use them. Yeah, I know, but thanks." Tim walked back over toward the desk where he had been sitting, and started checking to make sure that he had everything. Once he was sure that he wasn't missing anything, Tim turned back to the others. "I'm ready when you guys are."

Dick sighed as he glanced around the room. The air was thick with anticipation. After so many months, they were finally going to put an end to the Damian threat. For the first time since this whole thing had started, they were all together and whole...no one was nursing any injuries other than the normal amount of cuts and bruises from their night time activities. The plan was set, and even though Dick knew that Bruce wasn't necessarily comfortable with the whole thing, he was working with them, which was something for which they were all relieved and grateful. Dick turned to Tim. "Why don't you and Jason go get the rest of our stuff together? I'll meet you at the bikes."

Without a word, the other two left. Dick couldn't help but notice how relieved Jason had looked to get out of the room. He never spoke about his conversation with Bruce. The others weren't foolish enough to bring it up, but he hadn't been his normal snarky self ever since that night. Tim had immediately returned to his Robin-like business mode when it seemed that Jason was just going to sulk this out, but this was the first time that any of them had seen Bruce since that night, and it was clear that nothing was going to go back to normal until after they got Damian back to his own dimension where he could go wreak havoc on his own world. At least, Dick hoped that everything would return to some semblance of normal. He didn't have any delusions that everything between Bruce and Jason was going to be healed with one heartfelt conversation, and he had no idea if Tim would relax a little once there was no longer a demon constantly trying to kill him.

Dick turned back to Bruce. "You should get going. We'll meet you at the designated rooftop once you have Damian with you. Be careful."

Bruce nodded once, and then left.

Dick did one last check of his apartment to make sure that they had everything that they needed. When he met up with the other two, they were already on their bikes waiting for him. Dick walked over and placed a hand on Jason's shoulder. "You know once this is all over, you're welcome to stop by...or, you know, stay."

Jason just stared at him for a moment, not saying anything. "If you say so."

Tim glanced over to Dick, clearly concerned by Jason's lack of attitude and general irritation at the world at large. Dick shrugged before getting onto his bike. He was about to turn it on when Tim gave him a gesture to halt. "Yeah, Jason, I could use another sparring partner." Tim tried...it wasn't one of his best efforts, but to be fair Dick was pretty sure that his thoughts were more focused on what he needed to do once they got back into Gotham.

Jason just shrugged. "You've got Dickie bird."

It was the first time that Jason had used the nickname since his conversation with Bruce, and Dick wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not. Tim just stared at Dick waiting for him to say or do something...as if Dick had all the answers. Dick shrugged again, and tried to make it very clear that he was out of his depth here. It wasn't like he was very good at interacting with Jason before his death, and he sure as hell wasn't any better now. "I guess we should get going. We have a lot to set up before Bruce gets there with Damian."

Tim looked mildly disappointed for a fraction of a second before he put on his helmet, and then started his bike. Dick knew Tim was currently sporting that determined set of his jaw that he always wore when it was time to get to work. Although, whether that facial expression was for the mission ahead or what he wanted to happen after this was all over, Dick wasn't sure. One thing was clear though, they had a long, and most likely silent, drive ahead of them back to Gotham, which meant that they all had plenty of time to think. However, Dick wasn't so sure that time to think was a good thing for any of them.

He knew that Jason and Tim had grown somewhat closer while they were hiding out together-that was obvious just from watching them interact at his place-but with Jason acting so off, and Tim being so closed off lately, he wasn't sure that whatever truce they had managed to declare would hold after this particular mission was over. But Dick hoped that it would. He wanted nothing more than for his two younger brothers to get along, and not just for their sakes. He enjoyed spending time with both of them, and was happy to have the worst fight be about who was going to wash the dishes. It was simple, and Dick missed simple. For almost an entire month, the three of them had been able to put aside everything from the past and just be. Not to mention that it was nice to have two people Dick could leech physical contact off of. Dick always knew that he was a social creature who needed physical affection, and while neither of his younger brothers were exceedingly comfortable with physical contact, they both seemed to put up with it enough from him to suit Dick's needs just fine. He was going to miss not having them around all of the time, even if that meant that he could finally reclaim his bathroom.

When they arrived at the designated rooftop, Tim immediately started setting up everything that he needed. He used white chalk to draw intricate symbols in a large circle around him on the rooftop, and then spread the pouches that Bruce had given him in front of him in a straight line in a very specific order, so that when it came time to mix the contents of the bags he could do it quickly and in the precise order that Jason Blood had taught him. Next he took the four long white candlesticks and placed them at North, South, East, and West. He placed Jason's lighter near the one placed at North for two reasons. One, so that he could easily access it later, and two, because the spell required something personal from each of the members involved. Tim then moved to place the knife that was a gift from Jason near the candlestick that sat to the west of him. Next to the candlestick in the east, Tim placed one of Dick's extra escrima sticks, and finally, beside the candlestick in the south, Tim placed one of Bruce's batarangs. Tim opened a small case he had sitting next to him, which contained a syringe filled with Damian's blood. He placed five drops of the blood in the center of the circle, and then sat back on his heels...kneeling in the center.

Once Tim had finished, he looked over everything he had done to make sure that he wasn't forgetting anything. Once he was sure that he had done everything correctly, he called the other two over. "I've done everything that I can until they get closer."

The other two just stared at him for a moment before Jason moved into his defensive spot in front of Tim's circle. He glanced over at Dick. "Try not to fuck this up."

Dick breathed out a laugh full of relief, now that Jason was suddenly acting like his old self. "You just make sure to cover Tim. No matter what happens, he can't be interrupted until he's finished the incantation, and managed to sustain a portal. Once the doorway to Damian's world is stable, feel free to jump in and help. We have no idea what he can do beyond transforming into a demon."

Jason glared at him for a moment. "Yeah, that and set the entire roof on fire, but Tim and I learned that the hard way."

Dick set his jaw. "That's not happening this time. I promise."

Jason didn't look convinced of that...not at all. "Sure, just try not to get your ass blown up. I really don't feel like scraping you off the sidewalk."

Dick smiled brightly at that. "You be careful too, Jason."

Jason rolled his eyes before turning back to Tim. "What's B's ETA? Do you think I have enough time to kick Dick's ass?"

Tim smirked as he shook his head no. "I don't think so. You two spend too much time bickering and acting like idiots before the actual fighting starts."

Jason glared at Tim. "Why the hell am I protecting you again?"

Tim's smile only brightened at Jason's griping. It had been a long time, and Tim had actually kind of missed it. "Because, despite everything, you're intelligent enough to know that you can't be angry with the world when there is no world left to be angry with."

Jason scowled more. "Damn semantics."

"Hey, guys, I just got word they'll be here soon. Tim you better start lighting those candles."

The two of them snapped to attention at Dick's words. Tim waited a few seconds, and then began to light the candles...moving counterclockwise. The moment Bruce and Damian touched down on the roof, Tim started reciting the spell that Jason Blood had taught him. The words rolled off of his tongue with the precise amount of emphasis on the syllables that needed it...just like all of the times he had practiced it. The language wasn't similar to any other on earth, and even Kryptonian wasn't so long winded, or as hard to learn, but Tim had made good use of all of his sessions with Jason Blood.

The moment Damian realized what Tim was speaking, he lashed out in anger, and started hurling explosives straight at Tim; but the other three were fully capable of taking care of the situation. At least, Tim hoped so. He couldn't afford to get distracted from his recitation. Although, as Bruce and Dick moved in to detain Damian, it was clear to Jason and Tim that something was very wrong. They couldn't hear what Damian was saying, but they could both see his lips moving. Suddenly the air around them was thick and hot. It crackled with energy, and they both knew what was about to happen. Tim couldn't afford to stop, and scream...stopping would render the spell useless, but he wanted nothing more than to halt his chanting. Luckily for him, Jason was already moving, and yelling. "He's going to transform! Back away NOW!"

Both Bruce and Dick had seen the footage of what Damian transforming was like...what terrible consequences it could bring, but no amount of watching could have ever prepared them for it. Fire erupted from seemingly nowhere. The air pressure changed dramatically, the sheer force of the wind that also seemed to appear from nowhere pushed them all back, and with a screeching yell, there was suddenly a horrid-looking, red-skinned, black-horned, wrinkly demon standing in front of them. It didn't matter that they had both seen Damian transform into this once before, and knew what the transformation looked like, it was still terrible-and worse was the smell. The entire area around him smelled like putrid flesh. His eyes glowed, and his long, sharp, pointed teeth were the most repulsive yellow color any of them had ever seen.

The three of them fell back, and surrounded Tim, who had just started emptying the pouches into the center of the circle directly on top of the drops of Damian's blood. Without any warning, Damian started teleporting around them...flashing in and out of sight. Jason groaned as he held his knives out in front of him. "Oh, great, he can teleport. Tim, did you know that he could teleport? Because, I swear, if you did, and you just felt like leaving that out, I'm going to kick your ass so hard once this is over."

Dick spun his escrima sticks in his hands. "Jason, now's not the time. Focus!"

Before the two of them could start bickering at each other properly, Bruce's growl of, "Down!" cut through the air, and mere seconds later a fireball flew over their heads.

Dick got to his feet first. "Of course he has fireballs, because this couldn't possibly be easy. Tim, I don't mean to rush you, but, you know, fireballs." Dick's voice trailed off as he dodged another.

Tim finally managed to open the last pouch and lay its contents on top of the others. He finished the incantation, and then proceeded to light the whole pile of what looked like dry kindle in front of him on fire. Damian screeched as if in pain as a spiral of blue light began to form above Tim's head. It moved outward until it was the same size as the chalk circle Tim had drawn. The symbols beneath Tim's feet started to emit an eery white light. Jason turned to Tim once the spiral of blue light reached the edge of the circle. "Is it stable yet?"

Tim shook his head no, but since he no longer had to speak whatever Damian's language was called, he could verbally answer. "Not yet, when the light is no longer spiraling there will be another flash and it'll change to another color. Once that has happened the portal will have been completely established. Keep him distracted until then. If he kills me, then the portal will die with me."

Dick grunted as Damian managed to teleport in front of him, and kick the wind out of him. Dick flipped away from the razor-sharp orange claws attempting to disembowel him. "You know, Tim, I'm starting to think that we need to have a talk about the way you just say things like, 'if he kills me, then the portal dies with me,' in such arid tones. I know you're not all about the emotions, but a little worry or concern for your own well-being wouldn't kill you."

Tim rolled his eyes as he watched the portal for any signs of stabilization. "Do you honestly think that now is the best time to have this conversation?"

Dick dodged Damian's claws once again as he rolled away. "Sure, why not? It's not like I'm busy." The three of them moved around the entire rooftop, sidestepping fireballs, blocking blows from the teleporting demon, and weaving in and out of the space in front of Tim. They made sure that there was always someone in front of him to keep the doorway to Damian's world open.

Tim wanted to respond to Dick, but before he could, there was a flash, and the portal changed from blue to purple. Tim waited a few more seconds to make sure that the portal was fully established before moving into the fray. "The doorway is stable. All we have to do is move him into the center of the of the circle." Tim yelled over the sounds of fighting.

Jason rolled his eyes as he ducked another fireball. "Oh, yeah, that's all we have to do. That should be easy as pie with the fucking teleporting, and what not."

The four of them circled around Damian, sidestepping attacks. There seemed to be no pattern to the way that he was popping in and out-moving around them, but Tim noticed that there was always a 3 second interval before he emerged in front of one them. Tim was trying to track Damian's movements, but it was difficult while trying to dodge all of his other attacks. Tim managed to spin out of the way of a fireball, only to come face to face with the demon himself. Before he had a chance to move, though, Damian sunk Tim's own knife into his gut. The portal flickered, but remained, though it wasn't as bright as it had been. Tim fell to the ground, unable to stand through the pain, as Damian stood over him laughing, thinking he had won, which was all the time that Bruce needed to lunge at Damian and bodily throw him into the center of the still-glowing symbols. Before the demon even had time to scream, the portal lowered itself over him, and seemingly swallowed him whole before disappearing with a loud popping noise.

When Bruce turned to check on Tim, he wasn't surprised to see the other two already working to keep him alive. "You did it, Timmy. He's gone, and you're gonna be fine." As Dick whispered reassurances to Tim, Jason removed the knife from Tim's gut, so that he could put pressure on the wound better. None of them were surprised at how much blood flowed out once the knife was removed, but it still made each one of them worry more. Jason held Tim's cape over the wound as Bruce reached for the control for the Batjet. Dick cradled Tim's head in his lap as he spoke softly. "It's going to be okay, little brother. You did great."

Jason applied as much pressure as he could as he lied to Tim. "You'll be fine. It's not even that bad. You'll be up, stealing the remote, and forcing me to watch more science shows in no time. It's not like you need a spleen anyway."

Bruce didn't say anything before walking over and carefully picking Tim up to carry him into the Batjet. The three of them worked together to make sure that Tim wasn't jostled too much and that Jason never had to relieve the pressure that he was putting on the wound. Once they had managed to get him into the jet. Bruce set the navigation system for the cave, and then the three of them got to work on stabilizing Tim's vitals, and patching him up as much as possible without Alfred there.

The moment that Jason was sure that the other two had it covered, he moved to contact Alfred and let him know that they were going to be in need of his medical skills and that he should have everything ready for when they arrived. But, as he reached for the comm, Jason froze when he caught sight of how much of Tim's blood was on his hands. It wasn't as though he hadn't seen it all while he was trying to hold Tim's guts in, but that wasn't really what he had been focusing on at the time. Now, it seemed to be the only thing that he could focus on. There was once a time when the sight of blood on his hands didn't faze Jason at all...much less the sight of Tim's blood on his hands; but he'd grown attached to both of his bothers over the last month or so, and it was hard to keep his mind on task knowing that he could very well lose one of them so soon after getting them back.

Before Jason could shake himself out of his reverie Dick came up behind him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "Did you contact Alfred yet?"

Jason just shook his head no, but didn't say anything. Dick stared at him for a moment before squeezing him tightly. "Don't worry about it. I'll contact him. You should go sit with Tim." Jason just stared at him-almost incomprehensibly-before Dick pushed him in the direction of where Tim lay.

Bruce stood hovering over Tim, trying to keep him alive for the duration of the flight, which would have made Jason tense, but he just didn't have the energy right now. Jason wrapped a hand around Tim's wrist, checking his pulse. He had done the same thing the first night after they had been blown off the roof. Tim was just sleeping then-nursing wounds that looked far worse than they really were-but Jason had checked his pulse anyway, because the kid slept so soundlessly that Jason thought he had to have been dead. Jason had laughed for almost five whole minutes when Tim had flailed and tried to move into a fighting stance, but was too hurt to manage it properly. He wasn't flailing now, and that made Jason worry even more than all of the blood had.

"You've grown close to him." Jason's thoughts were interrupted by Bruce's voice.

It wasn't a question, but Jason nodded anyway. He wasn't sure why Bruce had said it. Maybe the man was just surprised that Jason was still capable of becoming close to anyone. "The kid grew on me, so what?"

Bruce simply shook his head. "I'm glad."

Before Jason could say anything they arrived at the cave, and the three of them once again had to work together to move Tim. As always, Alfred was there, waiting and ready. While Alfred worked on patching Tim up, Dick led Jason over to the showers. It wasn't as though Jason didn't know where they were, but it seemed that Jason's feet were having a hard time moving. Dick wrapped his arm around Jason's shoulders again as he directed him toward the showers. "Jay, come on, work with me here. You're barely shuffling your feet. You want to wash up, and get the blood off of you, don't you?" Dick sounded more worried than annoyed at Jason's lack of forward movement.

Jason shook his head as if to clear it, and then removed Dick's arm from his shoulders. "I'm fine...just tired." He hurried into the shower stall before Dick could say anything-or worse try to help him more-turned it on as hot as it would go, and didn't even bother undressing before stepping into the spray. He scrubbed at his hands and face, and then began removing his sopping wet clothes in order to scrub the rest of him. When Jason emerged from the shower it felt like eons had passed, and his skin was a bright red from the heat, but he didn't care. He felt better than he had in a long time. He wasn't surprised to see a pair of sweatpants and a shirt sitting out for him. Jason didn't want to know if they were Bruce's or Dick's, so he just put them on without thinking about it.

The shirt's tightness in the shoulders let him know that the clothes were Dick's, and he gave an inner sigh of relief, although he wasn't sure why that made him feel better. Jason walked out to find Alfred still working on Tim, who was most likely drugged out of his mind at that point, Dick was pacing at the other end of the cave so as not to get in Alfred's way, and Bruce was nowhere to be found...as always. Jason didn't feel like sticking around in the cave. His presence would only add to the tension, and he was suddenly starving, so he headed to the kitchen to go raid the refrigerator-because even left over Alfred food was still Alfred food, and few things could ever stand between Jason and Alfred's food.

Jason immediately started rummaging through the cupboards to find something to sate his grumbling stomach. When he opened one cupboard in particular he was intrigued to find an astounding amount of non-Alfred approved food. "What the hell? When I lived here there was never any junk food at all."

Jason spoke to the kitchen at large, not expecting an answer. That, however, did not mean that he jumped when he heard Bruce say from behind him, "That's because when you lived here you were half starved and junk food didn't have the nutrition that you needed."

Jason turned away from the cupboard that he had been ransacking to glare at Bruce. "So, junk food has the nutrition that Tim needs?" Bruce raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. "You're right. I've seen the way that health freak eats...he needs the junk food."

The two of them fell into an awkward silence, which, considering that was how most of their conversations tended to end, Jason figured it shouldn't have been that awkward. He didn't feel like dealing with Bruce's intense gaze and lack of being able to communicate though, so he returned to gathering Alfred's food from the refrigerator. After what felt like a life time of just staring at the plastic containers in a vain attempt to avoid more interactions with Bruce, Jason gathered the ones he had set his sights on the very moment he had opened the refrigerator door, and took them over to the table. He sat down and started digging into the food without bothering to reheat it. That would take too long, and would leave him with even more time to spend awkwardly not talking to Bruce. When it was clear that Bruce was just going to stand there and watch him eat, Jason swallowed his most recent mouthful of food, and sighed. "So why aren't you down there with Tim?"

Bruce didn't say anything for a long moment, and Jason was almost completely certain that he wasn't going to get an answer, but just as Jason was picking up another piece of his cold turkey Bruce sat down at the table and began talking to him. "I was afraid you were going to leave, and...I didn't think that was fair to Tim."

The 'or me' wasn't spoken, but Jason heard it loud and clear anyway. He wasn't ready for this conversation...hell, he wasn't sure he'd ever be ready for another conversation with Bruce, and he almost hoped that Dick would show up from out of nowhere. Jason knew it was stupid to hope that his big brother would come bursting in to keep Jason from another emotionally compromising Bruce-lecture, but damn if the thought wasn't persistent. Before Jason could work himself up anymore than he had already managed though, Bruce placed a hand on his shoulder. Jason's hand automatically moved toward his boot knife, but he restrained himself, although he was sure that Bruce had seen the gesture anyway. He squeezed Jason's shoulder for a moment before releasing him. "I'm glad you chose to stay."

Before Jason could respond, Bruce was gone, and suddenly Jason's turkey didn't look so appetizing. This new 'talking about emotions Bruce' was really starting to get to him. If Bruce wasn't careful, Jason was going to start talking to Dick about checking for alien parasites or something, but all of that would have to wait until Tim recovered from this incident. Jason didn't want to consider what would happen if Tim didn't recover, because Jason didn't see any way that he could continue dealing with all of Dick's physical affection without Tim there to share the brunt of it. And, he knew that there was absolutely no way he could deal with Bruce without Tim there to act as a buffer, because for the entire time that they had been hiding out together, Tim had been willing to listen to Jason rant and rave about Bruce without trying to defend him once. Dick couldn't do that. It just wasn't something that he was capable of, and that wasn't something Jason could handle...not without Tim to separate them when the debate got too heated...especially when there wasn't a coffee table between the two of them to slow them down.

Jason knew that Tim had to pull through...for all of their sakes. There was no other option. He just hoped that the kid was able to keep fighting, because that was the only way any of this was going to work. And Jason was almost shocked to discover that he actually wanted this-whatever it was-to work.

The End (for now)


	26. Chapter 26

Jason helped Alfred change Tim's bandages, while Dick checked the IV fluid. The three of them had worked out a system. Dick and Jason had made it clear that they weren't going anywhere; they insisted on helping Alfred take care of Tim. It had been three days since they had brought Tim home, and Bruce had been keeping his distance. Dick was still insisting that it was just his way of giving Jason space, but Jason didn't believe him. He just figured that Bruce wasn't willing to deal with him yet. They still hadn't actually talked about anything...including Jason staying once Tim was better; and Jason really wasn't looking forward to any more conversations with Bruce. He thought about leaving quite often, but couldn't bring himself to do it. After all, Tim had taken care of him after they had both been blown off a roof top, so he figured he kind of owed the kid... at least a little.

After all of Tim's bandages were changed and Alfred was satisfied with the rest of their work, he left them to watch over Tim-but not before reminding them both to get some sleep. Dick sat down in a chair next to Tim's bed while Jason just glared at all of the machinery surrounding them. "He'll be fine, you know? We got him here in enough time, and he'll be fine."

Jason nodded, but didn't say anything. It was the same litany he had heard over and over again for the past three days. Hell, he'd even given it to Dick a few times. Whenever one of them was brooding a little too much, the other would remind him that Tim was going to be fine, and he'd wake up eventually. It was just hard to remind himself of that when faced with the fact that Tim didn't have a spleen anymore, thanks to Damian, so his risk of infection increased dramatically. But since Alfred didn't seem too worried about it, Jason just assumed they were overreacting. The real problem was, he had no idea what he was doing here, or what he was going to do once Tim healed completely.

"Jason." Dick grabbed his arm, and Jason stopped pacing. He wasn't sure when he had started or when Dick had gotten up from his chair.

"Yeah?"

Dick stared at him for a moment before releasing him. "What's up with you? You've been on edge all day, and as much as I want to believe it's just concern for Tim, I can't really convince myself of that...not without taking a dangerous number of head shots first."

Jason shrugged, and tried to put on his game face. "Nothing, I'm just sick of watching you look like a sad little puppy."

Dick smiled brightly at him. "I am cute, aren't I? But, no, seriously, what's up?" Dick nudged him slightly in an attempt to get him to talk.

Jason sighed to himself, and slumped into the vacant seat by Tim's bed. "I don't know. I just keep thinking I should get the hell out of here before something disastrous happens."

Dick raised an eyebrow at him. "Like what?"

Jason stared at Tim's sleeping form for a moment. "I don't know; maybe another conversation with Bruce."

Dick laughed at that. "Come on, your last conversation with Bruce wasn't that bad." The laughter died away, and Dick seemed suddenly concerned. "Was it?"

Jason shook his head. "I don't know, man. It's just...I don't think this can work."

Dick raised his eyebrow again. "You don't think what can work?"

"This," Jason gestured to the cave at large. "It's just...I don't know. It was so much easier before all this shit started. I did what I did, and that was that."

Dick flipped into a handstand, and began pacing on his hands. "You mean it was easier before you cared about us."

"Yes...no, wait...who the hell said that I care about you?"

Dick just laughed at him again as he flipped back onto his feet. "Come on, Jason, admit it. You care about us, but you're not really sure how to care about us. You want this family to work, but you're not sure how to make it work."

Jason glared at him. "This isn't a family. _You_ are not my family."

Dick sighed as he slung an arm around Jason's shoulders. "You know, you used to be able to say that with a lot more heat to your tone. Now? Not so much. Can't you just admit it that you want to be one of us again?"

Jason shrugged off Dick's arm. "Ha, I don't think I was ever really one of you."

Dick shook his head at him. "You really can't, can you? You can't even admit it to yourself. Look, the big scary demon is gone now. You can't use that as an excuse for why you're here, so..."

"I know why I'm here," Jason growled at Dick. "I just...don't see a reason to stay once he's better." He jerked his head in the direction of Tim's bed.

Dick's eyes widen slightly at that revelation. "Wait, you don't honestly think that Bruce is just going to kick you out once Tim is better, do you?"

Jason shook his head. "No, but you're assuming I want to be here once he gets better."

Dick sat down on ground next to Jason's chair. "Why wouldn't you want to stay?"

"What, and deal with Bruce? Who the hell would want to do that? Besides, I do have a place of my own, you know?"

Dick shrugged. "In the words of Alfred, 'your current living conditions leave something to be desired...' a whole hell of a lot of something, actually. I get that you don't want to stay here, but I've got an apartment, you know, and I wouldn't mind the company."

Jason laughed at that. "What? Stay with you? Oh, come on, without Tim there to separate us, we'd kill each other for sure."

"Well, it's still better than your current living conditions. Anyway, I've gotta get some sleep, so think about it?" Dick walked over, and brushed Tim's hair off of his forehead. "Night, little brother."

They both paused when they saw Tim's hand twitch. After a few moments, Jason turned toward Dick. "I'm sure it was just a..." He trailed off when he saw Tim's eyes flutter open.

Tim scanned his surroundings before locking his gaze on both of them. "What happened?" His voice was hoarse from disuse.

"Hey, little brother, what do you remember?" Dick moved to get Tim a glass of water.

"Ugly demon, pain, pain, and more pain." Tim coughed as Jason helped him sit up.

Dick handed the glass of water to Jason, and Jason held it up to Tim. "Yeah, well we managed to send the ugly demon home. Unfortunately, he managed to gut you with the knife I gave you before that happened. You're fine. I do hope, though, that you didn't have some weird attachment to your spleen, 'cause that's gone."

Tim blinked at him as he processed the new information. "Well, you know, it was one of my favorite organs."

Jason laughed weakly. "Yeah, well, I would think that there are more important organs for you to cry over if/when you lose them."

Dick smiled at both of them. "Okay, well, I think we should probably tell Alfred and Bruce that you're awake. It's been three days, little brother, and I'm sure that the both of them are as worried about you as we were."

Tim stared at them for a moment. "Three days? It's been that long?"

Dick nodded. "Yeah, it seems that you needed the sleep."

Tim sighed as he laid back down. "Yeah, I guess."

"I'll be right back, okay?" Dick hugged him gently before leaving.

Tim nodded, and, once he was sure that Dick was gone, he turned to Jason. "I honestly wasn't expecting you to still be here."

Jason shrugged. "Alfred was busy, and Dick sucks at putting in an IV."

Tim raised an eyebrow at him. "Uh huh."

Jason held up his hands defensively. "No man, I'm serious. You should see him put in an IV sometime. It's like watching an inebriated monkey work. I'm not really sure how he ever got Bat sanctioned, but I think Alfred's planning on working with him on it."

Tim laughed weakly at him. "I'm sure he'll suggest that Dick use you as a guinea pig then."

Jason shook his head. "All the more reason to be on my way, now that you're awake."

Tim stared at him for a moment, but didn't say anything. Jason was just about to turn to leave when he felt Tim wrap his hand around his wrist. "I think everyone would prefer if you stayed."

Jason gently removed Tim's hand from his wrist. "How the hell would you know? You've been unconscious for the past three days."

Tim shrugged. "I'm the smart Robin, remember? You should stay."

Jason sighed to himself. "You know, Bruce is going to want to have another conversation with me."

Tim nodded. "He'll probably make you promise to stop killing, too. What's your point?"

"What if I can't do that ,Tim?"

Tim breathed out a laugh. "You've already proven that you can."

"Hey, I've told you, I just had more important things to do."

Tim stared at him for a moment. "Uh huh. What's the real reason, Jason?"

Jason folded his arms over his chest. "That is the real reason."

Tim shook his head. "Except for how it really isn't. Come on, Jay, you already know what you want. Why are you so afraid to have it?"

Jason sat back down in the chair by Tim's bed. "It already fell apart once, Tim. Why the hell would I want to go through that again?"

Tim sighed. "Because it's worth the pain."

"Is it?"

Tim closed his eyes for a moment, and just when Jason thought that he'd fallen back to sleep, Tim opened them again. "I guess only you can decide that, Jason."

Before Jason could respond, Dick came back with Alfred and Bruce following him. Dick and Jason moved to the other side of the cave while Bruce and Alfred checked on Tim. Dick nudged Jason after a few moments of just watching the other two work. "So, it looks like you're going to have to make a decision sooner rather than later, Jay-bird."

Jason sighed to himself. "Yeah, it does."

Dick nudged him again. "So, what's it going to be."

Jason sighed again as he rubbed his temples. "Honestly, I don't know, Dick."

The End (for now)


	27. Chapter 27

Jason stayed the night at the manor, but that was only because it was so late and Tim had asked him to. The thought made Jason want to breakdown laughing. It hadn't even been a year since this whole thing had started, and suddenly he was doing things just because Timmy, the useful Robin, was asking him to do so. Jason found himself wondering if he would have come here all those months ago if someone had told him that it would lead to this, and the thing that bothered him the most was the fact that he didn't actually know the answer.

Things had changed so much in such a short time, and Jason was left questioning how the hell it had all happened, and, more importantly, what the hell he intended to do about it. On the one hand, it had been days since he had first followed the others back to the manor, and nothing had blown up-which Jason was fairly certain some people would take as a good sign. On the other hand, he couldn't help but feel like it was only a matter of time before everything fell apart all over again, and probably more painfully than last time, although, he couldn't really imagine how. After all, last time was pretty damn painful. Jason fully believed that there was nothing like getting beaten to within an inch of one's life, and then blown up to cement that opinion.

He was sitting on a bed staring out of the window, when Dick suddenly tumbled through the door. Jason glanced over at the man who was walking on his hands over towards the bed. "Don't you ever just walk like a normal person?"

Dick flipped back onto his feet. "Where's the fun in that?"

Jason rolled his eyes at him. "What do you want anyway?"

"Tim said that you were moping and that I should come check on you, but I'm sure he only said that to get me out of his hair."

Jason couldn't help but smile a little at that. "You have been driving him crazy since he woke up."

Dick flopped down onto the bed beside Jason, laying on his stomach. "I can't help it. I worry about both of my little brothers."

Jason sighed at that. "I'm not even going to bother saying it. It'll just prompt you into hugging me or something, and I'm perfectly fine with letting you act out all of your horrible affection whore needs on Tim."

Dick grinned as he sat up, and wrapped his arms around Jason. "Aw, don't feel bad. I've got enough 'affection whore needs' to go around."

Jason rolled his eyes as he tried to push Dick off of him. "Can't you go bother Babs or something?" The moment the thought ran through his head, an evil smirk began to form on his lips.

Dick released him the moment he saw the expression on Jason's face. "Oh no, what are you thinking about? You've got that insane grin on your face."

Jason's smirk only grew wider. "Oh, nothing, I'm just thinking of how much Bruce would appreciate a Grayson hug right now."

Dick raised an eyebrow at him out of confusion. "Why? What did you do to him? Did you guys have another 'talk' yet?"

Jason shook his head. "Hell no, we've been doing the smart thing and avoiding each other like the plague. It's going well, just in case you're wondering."

Dick sighed, but decided to let it go. That was a battle for Bruce to fight...not him. "Anyway, have you thought about my offer at all?"

Jason stared at Dick completely incomprehensibly. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Dick sighed again as he shook his head. "You...me...New York...any of this ringing a bell?"

Jason suddenly got off the bed and started pacing around the room. "Fuck man, I don't know. Hell, half the time I don't even know why I didn't just leave in the middle of the night after Tim woke up, like I'd planned to."

Dick smiled at him slightly. "I don't understand why this is so hard for you. I mean, I do, but I think you're missing the important factors here."

Jason raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh really, and what's that?"

Dick stared at him as though it should be obvious. "The way I see it, you're really only stuck with three options here...your cooking, my cooking, or Alfred's cooking, and really, that's not a contest."

Dick gave him the sweetest most innocent smile he could muster, which just made Jason glare at him more, before throwing a pillow at him. "Helpful, jerk face...really fucking helpful."

Dick shrugged at him. "Just trying to make you see reason." At Jason's skeptical expression, Dick continued. "Look, if it makes it any easier on you, I can tell you one thing for sure. I'm not letting you return to that dirt hole that you currently call home. So if I were you, I'd pick another option really soon."

Jason folded his arms over his chest as he glared at Dick again. "Oh, really, and what exactly do you think you're going to do to stop me from returning to my apartment?"

Dick didn't say anything for a moment, before sighing. "I'm pretty sure the only downside to blowing that place up would be more air pollution, and I will drag you out of there kicking and screaming if I have to."

Jason rolled his eyes. "Why the hell do you care so much, golden boy?"

Dick shook his head at him. "You're my brother, Jason."

Jason scoffed at him. "Let's face it, Tim and I are closer to being brothers than you and I have ever been, and I almost killed him...more than once."

Dick got off the bed, and stood in front of Jason, searching his eyes for...something. Jason didn't know what. "Is that why you're being like this? Because of everything you did before?"

Jason shook his head as if to clear it. "You just don't get it. You keep saying before like anything has changed. It hasn't. I'm still...me."

Dick grabbed both of Jason's shoulders as if to keep him from bolting in the other direction. "No, you're not. I know you're not. We spent over a month together in my apartment. You never once killed anyone in that time period, and we...we got along."

Jason tore himself out of Dick's grasp. "You're such an idiot. We only got along, because we had to for the mission. I didn't go on patrol...none of us did, because we were lying low. Nothing has changed, golden boy...nothing at all, and pretending I'm something that I'm not will only end in disaster."

Dick stepped closer to him, but Jason only moved further away. "Don't do this, Jay. Don't run away again. Don't push us all away. We can be a family. You can have a family again. You just have to let us..."

"Let you what? Change me? Let you dictate who I am and what I do? No thanks, Dickie-bird. We tried that, remember? It didn't work out so well."

Jason turned to leave, but was halted by Dick's hand wrapped around his forearm. "None of us are asking you to be something that you are incapable of being."

Jason pulled away from Dick. "Yes, you are."

Dick reached for him again, but stopped when he realized how close Jason was to the window. "No, were not. You've proven you can be one of us again. You've proven you can get a job done without killing. You've proven you want to be our brother."

Jason glared at him. "All I did was play a part, Dickie-bird. I repaid my debt to the replacement for helping me, and I'm done."

Dick looked stung the moment the word replacement had left Jason's mouth. He hadn't called Tim that in months. Jason almost felt bad for it-almost, but it was necessary for Dick to understand-to really see him for what he was. Before Dick could move, Jason jumped out of the window to the tree outside, and made his way down to the ground below. Dick wanted to chase after him-knew that he should have, and yet, for some reason, he couldn't make himself move. He couldn't keep from wondering if what Jason said was true. What if Jason really had just been playing a part this whole time?

The End (for now)


	28. Chapter 28

Jason was in his apartment, hurriedly throwing things into a duffel bag. He had to get out of here, but not before he torched the place. The others knew about this place, which meant it was only a matter of time before one of them showed up to drag him back-or worse, gave up on him completely. At least at a new place, he could convince himself that he was just eluding them, but he didn't think that he could deal with knowing that he screwed up again-even if he hadn't actually done anything yet. But Jason knew himself. He knew that, given enough time, he'd find some way to destroy everything. He always did. He headed toward the window as he threw the last of his things into the bag, but before he could even open it, there was a sound behind him, and suddenly where his head had been there was a throwing knife imbedded in the wooden trim of the window.

"Leaving so soon, stubborn one?"

Jason spun around to see Daisuke standing behind him, looking smug. "You really should have just crawled back into whatever hole you crawled out of once we let you go last time."

Daisuke threw back his head and laughed. "Let me go? Come now, even you can't lie to yourself that much."

Jason sighed to himself. "Look, I don't really have time for this shit, so if you could just give me your cryptic message and leave, that'd be great."

Daisuke shook his head while he tsked at him. "This isn't very fun. I was at least expecting a few insults. What happened to the angry killer that I met all those months ago? It's as though the fire has just drained from you completely."

Jason glared at that. "What the fuck do you care? If you don't have anything to say, then get the fuck out. I've got shit to do, and you're wasting my time."

Daisuke smirked at him. "You're trying to get it back, aren't you? Trying to bury yourself in the pain and anger just like you used to, but you can't, can you? Are you finding that it's no longer there?"

"Well, one thing's for sure-you're still just as annoying as ever." Jason growled before dropping his bag, pulling one of his guns and aiming it directly at Daisuke's head. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not running around with the rest of the gun-phobic bat-crew, and the demon brat has been dealt with, so you've outlived your usefulness to us."

He pulled the trigger, but Daisuke had already moved. "Did you forget about my advanced speed again?"

Jason smirked evilly. "What the hell makes you think that I was aiming at you?" Before Daisuke could respond, the entire apartment burst into flames. "I was gonna torch the place anyway. I might as well cut off your exit while I'm at it." Jason moved to escape through the still-opened window, but before he could pull his left foot through, he felt a hand wrap around his his ankle and pull him back into the burning building. He'd expected Daisuke to run towards the now clear window, but instead he just held him down. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Daisuke stared at him as though it should be obvious. "I once said that there would come a time when neither of us would have the choice to stay. You have accomplished your mission. It's time for us to return to where we both belong."

Jason growled at that, low and feral. He could feel heat all around him, and the room was starting to fill with smoke, despite the opened window. "And I told you that we'll always have the choice to fight." He wrenched his arm out of Daisuke's grasp and punched him in the face, and then quickly got to his feet. "I knew you were crazy, but if you want to stay in the raging inferno that's your problem."

Jason dove for the window once again, but Daisuke was faster, and pulled him back. He had his arms and legs wrapped around Jason, pinning the other mans arms to his sides. "I don't know what your problem is, but death by fire isn't on my itinerary for today." He threw his head back and smirked at the sound of Daisuke's nose breaking. Unfortunately, he still didn't let go, so Jason slammed him into a nearby wall. "When I want a bear hug, I'll go see Dickie-bird. Now, get the hell off of me."

Jason huffed out a breath as he slammed Daisuke into the wall again. The smoke was making it hard to breathe, and it was already stinging his eyes. Jason knew that if he was going to survive he needed to get the hell out of there and soon...preferably before the fire cut off his only exit. "Fine, be that way. You don't want to let go then we'll just go together."

He backed away from the window as far as he could with the one side of the room engulfed in flames, and ran as fast as he could toward the window. "Normally, I would say something along the lines of hold on tight, but you want to die anyway, so what the fuck do I care?" Jason tucked his head down as he went crashing through the window to keep the glass from doing serious damage to his face. They rolled when they hit the fire escape, but Daisuke lost his grip, so Jason landed sprawled out on one of the lower landings while Daisuke ended up on one of the higher ones.

Jason glared up at him, once he got to his feet, but it didn't take a genius to see that Daisuke wasn't nearly as banged up as Jason was from their little tumble. He was leaning against the railing trying to figure out if his ribs were just sore or broken again when Daisuke threw three shurikens at him. Jason jumped down to the ground, narrowly missing being hit by the shurikens. He landed in a crouch, and then took off running. He knew there was no way that he could out run Daisuke, but he hoped that, at least, he could put some distance between them. Once he reached the mouth of the alley, Jason had every intention of ducking down another alley not far away and grabbing one of his bikes; but before he could, a red motorcycle zoomed in front of him, effectively cutting of his escape.

"Get on." The guy on the bike demanded, as he threw him a helmet.

Jason slid onto the bike, and wrapped his arms around the guy. "Not that I'm not happy to see you, or anything, but should you really be out of bed, Tim?"

Tim shook his head. "Probably not, but if someone hadn't run off like an idiot, I wouldn't have had to. So, who'd you piss off this early in the day anyway?"

"The usual, Daisuke Tanaka is trying to kill me."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Maybe because he's crazy."

"We used to say the same thing about you, you know." Jason could hear the smirk in Tim's voice, and couldn't help but want to smack him. However, Tim did just save his ass, so he figured it wouldn't kill him to be nice.

"Yeah, yeah, just keep driving."

Suddenly, Tim swerved the bike, and skidded to a stop. "What the hell?" Jason looked down to see his hand covered in blood. "Hey, you okay?"

Tim nodded. "Yeah, just popped a few stitches, that's all. But it doesn't matter. We've got bigger problems to deal with."

Normally, Jason would have argued with that, but as he followed Tim's gaze to the original reason he had swerved, all Jason could do was swear. "Well, fuck."

"You sure know how to piss people off. But maybe, next time, you could pick someone with a few less resources."

There in the middle of the street stood a small horde of demons that looked exactly like Damian in his demon form, and right in the middle of them, Daisuke stood leading them. "Okay, so you brought Damian here, you led us on a wild goose chase to send him home, (which we did, mind you) and now you brought more of his kind here to kill Jason. What I don't get is, why?" Tim was standing slightly in front of Jason now, which Jason thought was just ridiculous, given Tim's current state. Although, Jason was only marginally better after the fight in his apartment.

Daisuke smiled evilly at that. "It's not just the loud one I want dead. The one you call Damian was supposed to kill all of you. He failed, and will be severely punished for it later. It turns out that he actually kind of liked it on this pathetic piece of rock. He wanted it all to himself, which is why I sent you after him. I knew that if I told you that human lives were at stake, you would have no choice but to help, and I figured the blood thirsty one would have no problem disposing of him. However, getting you all involved and watching you fight each other was just entertaining. I didn't foresee you actually bonding with each other, though. But that hardly matters, now. Now, I can just enjoy the irony of the fact that you, stubborn one, have finally gotten your family back only to lose them all over again."

Jason leaned forward, so that only Tim could hear him. "I bet you're kicking yourself for not letting me kill him now, aren't you?"

Tim just ignored him. "So, Daisuke Tanaka isn't a real person at all. You're just another one of them masquerading as a human. His file, his past, his life...all of it was just a fabrication."

"You always were the smart one, Timothy." Daisuke motioned to the five demons behind him. "Well, what are you waiting for? Destroy them!"

Jason grabbed Tim's wrist as he got back onto the motorcycle. He knew something was going to happen to screw up everything. It always did. "There's no way we can beat all of them. We've gotta get out of here."

Tim nodded his agreement. "Head to the cave. I'll keep them off our back."

The End (for now)


	29. Chapter 29

When they finally managed to make it to the Cave, they found Dick pacing the length of it, worriedly. He suddenly spun around when he heard their bike screeching to a halt. "Tim, you know you're not supposed to be out of bed yet, and..." He trailed off when he saw Jason. "Jason, you're back. Good work, Tim." He paused for a moment as he took in the state of their clothes. "Why is it that every time the two of you leave, you both come back bloody? What the hell happened?"

Jason helped Tim off of the bike as he answered Dick. "No time to explain. Suit up, while I patch up Tim. We've got incoming. Where the hell is Bruce?"

Instead of doing what Jason told him to, Dick threw one of Tim's arms over his shoulder, and helped him to one of the medical tables, while Jason gathered the first-aid supplies. "Upstairs, what's going on?"

Tim helped as much as he could as Dick started to remove his shirt. "Daisuke is one of the demons. He's the one responsible for Damian being here in the first place, and now he's brought more of them to eradicate us. I think his goal is to take over the earth, but I'm fairly certain that that's secondary to killing us for some reason."

"Okay, I'm going to go get Bruce. Jason, once you finish patching up Tim, get suited up. Tim, you're staying here."

"What?" Tim and Jason spoke simultaneously.

Jason dropped the first aid kit unceremoniously next to Tim. "Dick, what the hell am I supposed to get suited up in? It's not like I have anything here, and well, I didn't grab my bag before the fire consumed my apartment."

Dick glared at Jason. "I don't care. Wear one of my back-ups if you want."

Tim winced as Jason began fixing his stitches. "Great, well, now that that's settled. What the heck do you mean I'm staying here?"

Dick just rolled his eyes at him. "You know we have a rule about how many times you can pop stitches in one day before Alfred gets out the sedatives."

Tim glared and tried not to flinch as Jason pulled the needle through his skin again. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we've got a horde of demons on our trail, and we don't have time to argue. Nor can we afford for one of us to sit this out. I'll be fine."

Dick opened his mouth to argue, but Jason held up a hand to stop him. "He's right about one thing. We don't have time for this. Go get Bruce."

Dick looked extremely reluctant to do so, but after a momentary stare-off with Jason, he huffed out a breath and ran up the stairs. Jason sighed in relief before returning his attention to suturing Tim's abdomen. "He's right, you know."

Tim gritted his teeth as Jason worked. "Don't start."

Jason rolled his eyes and tried to work faster without jeopardizing the quality of his work. "Kid, it's been less than a week since you were gutted open and lost your spleen. You're in no condition to fight, and you know it."

Tim glared daggers at him. "This is my fault."

Jason stilled all over at that, pausing with the needle halfway through Tim's skin. "How do you figure?"

Tim sighed and hung his head. "I should have realized that Daisuke's blood sample was a fake. I should have figured out what this was really all about months ago. Instead, I screwed up and wasted time, and now we're..."

"Shut up."

Tim's head shot up at that and he just stared at Jason blankly. "What?"

"I said, 'shut up.' You couldn't have known the blood sample or the guy's entire file was fake. There was no way you could have foreseen all of this, so just shut up. You're injured and you're staying in, and that's final."

Tim rolled his eyes again. "You can't keep me from going with you guys, Jason."

"No, but I can." Bruce's voice was all Bat as he walked down the stairs. "Jason's right, Tim. You're too injured to be out there, and besides we're going to need you to contact Jason Blood again, and find out how to send all of these monsters back to wherever they came from."

Tim still looked as though he wanted to argue, but clearly knew there was no point. He nodded once, and then made his way to the computer once Jason had finished sewing up his wound. Bruce then came over and placed a hand on Jason's shoulder. "I have a suit for you, if you want it?"

Jason's eyes widened at that. "You do?"

Bruce simply nodded and gestured for Jason to follow him. Hanging beside Dick's extra costumes was a suit of gray body armor with a red bat symbol on the chest. Jason could tell just by looking at it that it was going to fit perfectly. "When did you have time to create this?"

"When you were staying with Dick. I had hoped that you would choose to stay."

Jason didn't know what to say, so he merely grabbed the suit, but before he left to go change he simply whispered, "Thanks."

The suit was clearly something Bruce had designed on his own. The gloves were more his style than Jason's, and quite frankly, Jason wasn't sure that he liked having the extra armor around his wrists. It was certainly something that he wasn't used to, therefore, he simply wore his own motorcycle gloves, which he just happened to have been wearing before the battle in his apartment. The boots, however, fit perfectly and were just the right amount of heavy. He liked them even better than his own. Jason wasn't a fan of capes, but unlike Dick he felt naked going out in just the body armor, so he slid on his leather jacket once again, and slapped a red domino mask onto his face before leaving the changing area.

When he entered the main part of the cave again, Dick and Bruce were already suited up and Tim was at the computer typing furiously, but he paused for a moment to give Jason a once over. His mouth quirked up in small smile as he inclined his head slightly. "Nice gloves, Jay."

Jason breathed out a laugh at that. "Yeah, no offense, B, but the other pair just wasn't me."

Bruce grunted in approval. "We can fix that later. Now it's time to go."

Jason didn't argue, nor did he even pretend as though he wasn't keeping this suit. He still wasn't certain about coming back and being a part of this family again, but he figured he'd deal with that later. Right now, they had a minor alien invasion to deal with. Jason nodded as he got back onto the bike that he and Tim had come in on, and took off after the Batmobile.

The End (for now)


	30. Chapter 30

Jason didn't know how they were going to win this one. It was hard enough for the four of them to defeat one of these demons, and now it was three against eight. Jason wasn't surprised that the original five had had friends. After all, his life was rarely easy. The odds weren't optimal. If the demons hadn't been able to teleport, then this would have just been difficult, but the fact that they could just made this extremely treacherous. Jason evaded a sweep of claws from one, and took a hit to the side from another, knocking the wind out of him. He dodged a fireball, and kept moving, mentally thanking Bruce the whole time for the extra body armor in his new suit. One demon had tried to slice Dick open. Jason managed to kick that demon in the face before he spun away from another attack. "This is getting tiresome. Any word from Tim yet?"

Dick shook his head as he flipped over one of the demons, and punched another before moving on. "Not yet, but I'm sure that he's working on it."

Jason huffed out a breath as a clawed foot connected with his stomach. "Yeah, well, he better hurry up or we're all in trouble."

Before Dick got a chance to respond, they both heard Bruce's voice bellow over the sound of a fist connecting with flesh. "Shut up and fight."

"Yes, sir," they both said in unison, even though Jason's voice was distinctly more mocking than Dick's.

They continued fighting, not really getting anywhere. It was hard enough to just stay out of the way of the teleporting demons, not to mention the occasional fireballs. Getting in any hits of their own was becoming nearly impossible. They were all growing tired, and it was showing. Bruce's face was bleeding from a strike he had been just a little too slow to avoid. One arm of Dick's suit had been shredded from when he had managed to flip over three demons, only to land in front of a fourth. At least the injury didn't look too deep. Jason had no idea how he had accomplished that with as little armor as the acrobat liked to wear. As for Jason, his armor had taken most of his hits for him, but that didn't mean that he wasn't feeling the pain from some of those attacks, and he was pretty sure that the back of his hair was singed from a fireball he almost hadn't dodged.

Jason was able to punch one demon in the neck, and would have cheered as it hit the ground if it wasn't for the second one that had wrapped its talon-like nails around his throat. It was glaring down at him with a look of pure ecstasy as its claws dug into Jason's neck. "I'm almost regretting leaving Timmy at home."

Before Jason could attempt to pry the demon's clawed fingers off of his throat, there was the distinctive sound of a batarang cutting through the air. When it connected with the demon's hand, it roared in rage and released Jason immediately. He landed in a crouch, and swept the demon's feet out from underneath him. Jason pulled a knife and moved to attack the downed demon, but before he got a chance there was the sound of gun fire. When he looked down, there was a tranquilizer dart sticking out of the thing's shoulder. He spun around to face his rescuer, only to frown when he saw who it was. "You're supposed to be back at the cave."

Tim glared at him. "Yeah, well, unfortunately, there was no other way to get this here." He held up a small gold necklace. "You're welcome, by the way."

Jason ducked under the swipe of claws from another demon, and rolled to get to where Tim was standing. "And what the hell is that?"

"A talisman..." Jason pushed him out of the way, and kicked out at the demon that had tried to shove Tim off of the building. "You know what? I'll explain later."

Jason slid out of the way of the demon's fireball, and then started blocking blows from the demon with his knife. "Great, now I just have to keep you alive or else Alfred is going to have my head. How exactly did you manage to sneak out without him noticing anyway?"

"Who said he didn't know? You don't honestly think that I was stupid enough to come here alone, do you?"

Jason was just about to ask what the hell that was supposed to mean, but before he could, there was another gunshot sound, and then the demon he had been fighting reared back in pain, and promptly fell forward onto the ground with a tranquilizer dart sticking out of his back. Jason spun around to stare at Tim who was looking rather smug. "You didn't...you brought Alfie?"

Tim shrugged. "To be fair, he insisted, and the tranquilizer gun was his idea-and he is a rather good shot."

Jason watched as one by one the demons fell, all from tranquilizer darts. Jason had never doubted that Alfred was a good shot, but now he had the proof to warrant the saying that Alfred was the scariest Bat of them all. Once all of the demons were down, Tim instructed them to pile them up in the center of the roof-which was easier said than done, given how heavy the giant bastards were-and then they stood back to watch Tim work. Apparently Jason Blood had given very specific instructions for how to get rid of them. They all stood by silently as Tim and Alfred placed various items in a circle around the pile of demons. "Jason Blood told me that this time it's going to be far more complicated to send them home since there are so many of them, and there isn't a connection to just one of us like last time."

Bruce nodded once at the explanation. "Do you need us here for this?"

Tim shook his head. "I need all of you to place some of your blood on that candle over there, but I don't think I physically need you here for this."

Dick turned to stare at Bruce as he walked over to the candle Tim had pointed out. "Is there a particular reason we aren't sticking around to see them off?"

Bruce glared at his oldest, but didn't say anything. Jason, however, had no intention of leaving until he was certain that every single last demon was sent back to whatever dimension they had slunk out of...and that was when it occurred to Jason that this wasn't all of them. Suddenly he knew exactly where Bruce was going. "He's not sticking around, because he's going to go track down Daisuke."

Dick's eyes widened at that. "There's no way you're going alone. I don't care how much you glare at me."

Jason folded his arms over his chest as he glowered at Bruce. "I'm coming, too."

Bruce's glare only intensified. "One of you has to stay with Tim."

Tim stood for a moment before moving to the other side of his circle. "Actually, you're going to need my help. I'm the only one who knows the incantation to send him home, and Jason Blood gave me a way to seal their world from ours, so that we don't ever have to deal with them again. Therefore, it looks like we're all going."

Jason turned to stare at Tim, who was still drawing runes on the ground. "Yeah, sure, why don't we just take Alfred with us, too? It can be a family affair."

Dick smiled brightly at that, and Jason could tell that he wasn't going to like whatever Dick was about to say. "That tranq gun really did come in handy."

Jason rolled his eyes. "You're insufferable."

Dick laughed as he moved to fling an arm over Jason's shoulders. "You're just upset that you didn't think of it."

Jason glared, and was about to retort when Bruce's, "Enough," cut through their bickering. "You two are going to stay here and help Tim. Contact me when you're done here."

Both were about to protest, when Alfred interjected. "If I may, sir?" He was holding his tranquilizer gun in an almost threatening way. "It might be best to take the boys with you. Master Timothy and I can surely take care of things here." Tim opened his mouth to object, but Alfred was already turning toward him. "I'm sure the incantation can be spoken just as well over the comm system, young master."

Jason knew orders when he heard them. It didn't matter how it was phrased, everyone knew that, with Alfred, there was no arguing. Tim walked over and handed the talisman to Bruce. "You're going to have to place this around Daisuke's neck, and then inscribe this in a circle around him." He slipped a piece of paper with a drawing on it into Bruce's palm. "Once Daisuke is gone, you have to throw this through the portal." He pulled a small black pouch out of his belt, and handed it over as well.

Jason raised an eyebrow at the pouch in question. "And what exactly is that?"

Tim shrugged. "No idea, but Blood made it very clear that it shouldn't be opened under any circumstances."

Jason glared at the little black pouch as Bruce tucked everything that Tim had given him into his belt. "Great, because that doesn't sound dangerous or anything."

Tim sighed as he stared at Jason blankly. "I didn't create the ritual, and now, thanks to this," Tim gestured to his torso. "I can't even be there to preform it, so just leave a few drops of your blood on the aforementioned candle, and find Daisuke." Jason moved to do just that, but paused when Tim grabbed his arm. "And, Jason, when you finally bring him down, make sure it's extra painful for me."

Jason's eyes widened for a moment before he nodded once. He wasn't expecting the request from Tim, of all people, but after everything that the kid had been through during this case, Jason certainly understood where he was coming from. After all, Tim had spent more time on the sidelines on this one than any of them, and not just because of the missing spleen incident. Getting rid of Damian had only been one piece of this nauseatingly long ordeal, and Jason was ready for this to finally all be over.

After Dick and Jason finished leaving some of their blood on the candle that Tim had indicated, they leapt over the side of the building, and followed Batman over the rooftops. Nightwing flew through the air as though gravity was optional for him, smiling the whole time. "Do you think he's gone underground?"

Bruce didn't even bother slowing down as he grunted out a, "No."

Jason rolled his eyes at the typical response. "And what the hell makes you so sure?" Bruce glared, but didn't say anything. Jason had the urge to roll his eyes again, but ignored it in favor of glaring at Dick's theatrics. "Right, because you're Batman and you just know."

At the use of such a bitter tone, Dick glanced over at Jason, but his giant grin never left his face. "So, how are we going to find him, boss?"

Again, Bruce didn't say anything as he continued to push forward. Jason scoffed at Dick's idiotic response. "We don't have to find him, because B already knows where he is, because he's just perfect that way."

Dick glared over at Jason. "It's really not necessary for you to be so..."

"He's at the docks."

Dick's head snapped up, and he stared at the back of Bruce's cowled head as they continued across rooftops. "What makes you say that?"

"It's obvious. Daisuke doesn't think that we're that great of a threat. He wasn't expecting his minions to fail. As far as he's concerned, he's already beaten us, and he's moved on to his next target."

Jason was honestly starting to believe that Bruce was losing it. "And you think that his next target is at the docks?"

"Daisuke believes that he has just defeated Batman and with him all of you. His goal is world domination."

Jason glanced over at Dick again, because clearly he was missing something vital, but Nightwing looked just as perplexed as he was. "I still don't see how that would lead us to the docks."

"If you intended to take over the world, and you believed that you had just defeated Batman, what would you do next?" Bruce's frustration with their lack of comprehension was evident in his voice.

Jason thought about it for a second, but he still couldn't see where Bruce was going with this. "I don't know. Go after Superman, I guess."

"Exactly."

Jason paused for a second, before leaping off of another rooftop. "Wait, so he's going after Superman?"

"Yes."

Jason looked over at Dick, clearly raising an eyebrow underneath his mask. "Am I the only one who still doesn't see how the docks are relevant here?"

Dick started to shake his head, but then realization dawned on him. "He's a giant red-skinned demon. He can't really rely on public transportation to get around, and he finds humans too disgusting to bother transforming again, so he's going to hitch a ride to Metropolis on one of the barges."

Jason blinked a few times, before leaping off of the next roof. "It's the perfect plan, really. All he has to do is slip onto the barge after the inspection is done, and no one will be the wiser."

Dick flipped onto another rooftop. "Yeah, and once he's on one, it'll be nearly impossible to find him. Do you know how many different barges cross the Gotham River?"

"Which is why we have to get there first, and stop him."

Jason rolled his eyes at Bruce once more. "Not that we actually have a plan to accomplish that or anything." He figured that Bruce did, but that didn't mean he had let either of them in on it.

Dick smiled at him warmly, despite the obvious dire situation. "We'll figure it out, we always do."

Jason glared at Dick's naturally cheerful response and his blind faith in Bruce. "Yeah, whatever you say, goldie. Just don't get yourself killed. I'd rather not have to explain that one to Alfred."

Dick's grin only widen as he flipped onto the next rooftop. "Have I mentioned how happy I am that you're back in the family?"

Jason glared and was about to tell him that he wasn't, but the protest died in his mouth when he saw Bruce's gesture for silence. Evidently, they were close now, and the last thing that any of them needed was to give away their position with useless bickering. Jason figured he could wait to work out his place in the messed up Bat-family once this was all over...that was, if there _was_ a place for him here. He still didn't believe that he belonged, and there was no way a well-made suit was going to change that...even if it did have a bat symbol on it.

The End (for now)


	31. Chapter 31

Jason crouched down as he made his way over another rooftop, and then, as quickly and silently as possible, he slid down a fire escape to the ground. The three of them had separated to find Daisuke, and so far there hadn't been any sign of the giant red demon. Jason was two seconds away from getting on the comm and asking if Bruce was right about this whole thing, since they had decided to split up half an hour ago and still none of them had seen even a glimpse of the demon in all of that time. After all, Daisuke definitely should have been here by now, especially since he supposedly was on his way here long before Jason, Dick, and Bruce had left Alfred and Tim on that rooftop. It seemed like a logical question, given that their entire reasoning of Daisuke coming here was based on the assumption that he detested his human form enough not to change back. Then again, it _was_ Batman's assumption, which made it more law than anything else-not that Jason didn't still hate that about the man.

He was definitely getting tired of ducking around the minimal cover that the docks had to offer when he heard a very distinctive pop, and he turned to see an easily identifiable figure in a trench coat. Jason rolled his eyes at the walking cliché as he slid his hand toward the comm in his ear. "I've got eyes on ugly. No idea what he's been doing this whole time, but he just teleported directly in front of me. If his outfit is anything to go by, he spent his time watching old movies."

"Keep your eyes on him and cut the commentary." Bruce's gruff voice was loud and clear over the comm and it made Jason want rolls his eyes again.

"Whatever you say, boss." Jason snarled as he glared at nothing in particular and watched Daisuke make his way towards the water. He wasn't really sure what the demon was doing, but Jason knew giving away his position right now was the last thing that any of them needed. He crept closer for a better view, but made sure to keep a fair distance between them.

However, that didn't stop him from being startled when Daisuke suddenly spun around and stared directly at him; despite the shadows concealing Jason's hiding space. "You know, angry one, I have excellent hearing in this form."

Jason didn't get a chance to call for backup before the large and hefty demon was on top of him, knocking him to the ground. Jason barely had enough time to pull out a knife and block the swipe of claws arcing towards his face, and he certainly didn't have the opportunity to avoid the other set that dug into his already bruised side. His new suit was better armored than the last, but that still didn't hinder the talon like nails that sliced through his suit and into his flesh. Blood dripped from his side as Jason tore the clawed hand from his ribs and punched Daisuke in his wrinkled face. He flipped back to his feet, and pulled out another one of his knives, ignoring the pain lacing through the left side of his body. "I've been waiting for this little rematch."

"I don't know how you managed to escape my minions, but don't be foolish enough to believe that you can defeat me. I will have what I came to this abysmal little rock for, and there's nothing that you can do to stop me."

Jason glared even more at the pompous demon in front of him. "Yeah, yeah, let's skip to the part where I kick your ass." Jason leapt forward using one knife to deflect blows, and the other to strike at Daisuke's vulnerable spots. He managed to catch Daisuke on the shoulder with his kris as he flipped over him, but before he could really sink the knife in to make it more than just a glancing blow, Jason had to bring his other knife up to block a strike that was aimed directly for his heart, and then he ducked under a kick that would have knocked him on his ass.

The two traded blows for what felt like an eternity, both receiving as many injuries as they gave, and Jason knew that he was slowly losing ground as Daisuke pushed him closer and closer towards the water. After the fight with the other demons, and the still bleeding wound in his side, Jason wasn't sure how much more of this he could take. He needed to do something before he ended up in the Gotham River, somewhere Jason didn't want to be even in under the best circumstances, not to mention with open wounds. He tried to sweep Daisuke's legs out from under him, but the demon merely jumped over him and kicked out, catching Jason across the jaw with his clawed foot.

Jason landed sprawled out on the ground, blood pouring from the gashes across his face. He took a moment to reach a hand up to his comm-fully expecting Daisuke to attack the moment that he did so-but the attack never came. In fact, Daisuke actually backed away from him, and the moment that Jason's finger touched the button on his comm, he heard that wretched laughter-the same one from his very first fight with Daisuke-and Jason knew…just knew that his night was about to get worse. "Stupid boy, didn't you wonder what I was doing while your silly little family dealt with my minions? Did you honestly think I wouldn't be prepared for you-the boy who escaped death once?"

Jason got to his feet, ignoring the blood and pain, but before he could take one single step towards Daisuke, he heard a familiar and distinctive beeping sound. He glanced down, and there, beneath his feet, attached to the underside of the dock, was an extremely obvious explosive device. Without a single thought, Jason took off running. There was no way this was happening again…no way he was going to allow his second life to end in the same fashion as the first.

His legs were the least injured part of his body, and, for that, Jason was grateful, because right now he was relying on them the most. He didn't know how much time he had, but Jason knew that he probably wasn't going to be able to clear the blast radius-but that didn't matter…not really. He wasn't planning on getting out of this unscathed, just alive. And that just meant that all he had to do was get far enough away to lessen the damage.

Jason had no idea how far he had gotten before he heard the initial explosion and felt the shockwave knock into him. He couldn't hear anything beyond the rush of blood in his ears, as he was thrown into the side of a building. He felt his bones break and his ribs crack, and for a moment Jason thought he was going to vomit before he hit the ground with an audible thud. The pain that tore through his body from the impact was nothing in comparison to the ringing in his ears and the faint echo of that hideous laughter. Jason shook his head and tried to push himself up off of the ground, but his body felt like it was made of lead. He struggled for a few moments before his arms gave out beneath him, and he landed face first on the dirty ground once more. He coughed, attempting to clear his airway of debris, and moved to try again. But before he could do more than get his hands underneath him, there was a foot on his back pressing him into the dirt. "You never learn, do you?"

Before he could even think to respond to Daisuke's taunting, Jason heard something large and heavy slam into Daisuke, and he watched as the demon was bodily thrown off of him by Nightwing. "You can say that's a Bat trait. We have a tendency to just keep trying." Dick's escrima sticks were already in his hands, and he was using them to pummel Daisuke.

Daisuke clawed at Dick, clearly furious with being interrupted. "How dare you interfere with my plans!"

Nightwing danced around him, smiling the whole time. "Interfering is what I'm good at." He then back-flipped off of Daisuke and reached for one of the hidden compartments on his suit. Dick didn't get a chance to do anything, though, because Batman had already thrown a few explosive batarangs as he landed on the other side of Daisuke. The two of them jumped, flipped, and rolled-attacking the demon the whole time-until they were on opposite sides, and Nightwing was close enough to help Jason up.

Dick carefully placed Jason's arm over his shoulders, and helped him to his feet. "Do you always have to take everything on by yourself?"

Jason coughed again, and then winced when his broken ribs moved. "Wasn't my intent, Goldie. Maybe someone shouldn't have been so late to the party."

Dick moved to support more of Jason's weight when he saw the wince. "Your ribs are cracked again, aren't they?"

Jason glared at him, knowing full well that Dick would be able to perceive the expression despite the domino mask, and then he ducked as best as he could, as Batman's fight with Daisuke found its way over towards them. "Yeah, thanks for noticing. Now, how about you move your damn feet? B's last kick was a little too close for comfort."

Jason could tell that Nightwing was rolling his eyes beneath his own mask, but Dick did pick up the pace as he moved Jason out of the way of the fight. He set Jason down far enough away that, while he could still see what was going on, he wasn't in immediate danger anymore. Jason slumped against the wall that Dick set him down in front of, and took stock of his injuries. If the three of them managed to make it out of this in one piece, he was definitely going to be on bed rest for a while. The mere thought of that irked him exponentially.

Dick handed Jason his field first-aid kit, and motioned for him to start applying bandages to the worst of his injuries. "Do you need help dressing your wounds?"

Jason knew that the only reason Dick asked, instead of just doing it was because he desperately wanted to get back into the fight and help Bruce. However, he obviously also didn't want to abandon Jason, either, which is why Jason didn't hesitate before shooting him a dirty look, and telling him to go away. "I think I can handle bandaging myself, Golden Boy. Now go make yourself useful."

Dick flashed him a smile before back-flipping away, like the showoff he very much was. Jason began locating where most of the blood was coming from, and tried to bandage the affected areas as well as he could while keeping one eye on the battle in front of him. Batman was throwing batarangs while dodging fireballs, when Dick leapt over Daisuke's head and hit him in the back with an escrima stick. That seemed to enrage the demon even further, who then began teleporting around them, attacking with claws and fire-and Jason was fairly certain he saw gnashing teeth a few times. The whole time, Jason cursed his broken bones and swimming vision. He hated sitting on the sidelines, and he still had a promise to keep to Tim, who probably wasn't feeling much better than Jason was right now, even if he did have Alfred doting over him.

Daisuke growled as Dick slammed his escrima sticks into his back, knocking him into Batman. Jason saw the demon lash out by tearing into Bruce's left arm with his claws. He heard Bruce's grunt of pain, but Jason didn't fail to notice how Bruce used the moment of distraction to reach into his belt for something. Dick swept the demon's feet out from underneath him, and then managed to pull Daisuke's arms down behind him. He used one of the zip lines to tie the demon's arms and legs behind his back, and then he sat on him to hold him down for good measure.

Bruce then moved to slip the talisman Tim had given him onto Daisuke's head. "It's time for this to end." Bruce then reached into another one of the pockets on his belt and withdrew the piece of paper that Tim had given him and what appeared to be a marker. He bent down and began inscribing the design on the paper in a circle around Daisuke. After Bruce finished and was sure that it was perfect, he reached up to tap his comm. Bruce didn't say anything, but the next thing that Jason knew, he could hear Tim's voice in his ear reciting something in a different language, and Bruce repeated everything he said, precisely. Daisuke began to squirm, desperately trying to get away, but Dick held him down the best that he could.

Moments later, a familiar spiral of light began to form in the space above Daisuke. Dick quickly got out of the way before the portal was fully formed. They definitely didn't need to deal with one of them accidently being sent through, too. Dick stood a fair distance away as Bruce continued to repeat everything Tim was saying, and Jason watched from his position on the ground. He noticed that Daisuke's claws had somehow managed to cut through the zip line, and Jason could tell that it would only be seconds before the creature was free. He couldn't get enough air into his lungs to yell a warning to Bruce and Dick, but he could reach one of his knives. Without a second thought, Jason gripped the handle, and threw the knife with as much force as he could muster. Daisuke howled in pain as the knife imbedded itself in the demon's shoulder, which was just enough of a distraction for Bruce to finish the incantation.

The portal engulfed Daisuke, and right before it closed, Bruce threw the pouch that Tim had handed him earlier into the center of it. They all watched in silence as a cloud of green smoke filled the air, and then dissipated almost immediately. When the smoke cleared, Dick glanced around the area, looking as though he expected something else to happen. "Is that it? Is it really over?"

Jason couldn't help but think that Dick was right-that there had to be something else. All three of them remained silent as they searched the surrounding area with their intense gazes, waiting for something to jump out at them. Tim's voice suddenly filled their ears. "All scans are clear. It looks like that's it."

Jason sighed and slumped in on himself, and then promptly took a sharp intake of breath when his ribs bothered him again. Dick smiled in relief, until he noticed Jason struggling to control his breathing. He ran over to Jason and threw Jason's arm over his shoulder. "Come on, Jaybird. Let's go home."

Jason glanced at Dick, and then over to Bruce and back again. "Yeah, home sounds good." Dick started to lead them away, but paused when Jason gestured for him to stop. Jason turned as much as he could in Dick's grip. "Well, are you coming, Bruce?"

Batman took one last scan of the surrounding area, and then stalked over toward his two boys. He grabbed a hold of Jason's other arm, and then drew it over his shoulder. "Home it is."

The End


End file.
